The Secret Diary of Kitty Cask, Smuggler's Daughter Page 3

  Speaking of Mr Duggan, he passed me in his carriage74 and, I’m sad to report, he had a most SATISFIED smile upon his face, as though he’d made good progress in his investigation. And anything good for the exciseman is bad for us.

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  56 One large grave rather than separate graves being dug. It was the law of the sea that where bodies were washed up, locals would bury them. This would be reassuring for those who lost their own fathers, sons or brothers at sea, hoping the same was true for them.

  57 Ecstatically drunk.

  58 Drunk.

  59 Big and grim.

  60 Wasting time.

  61 Making a big fuss out of nothing.

  62 Get you excited.

  63 For most people, the sting from the average jellyfish is no worse than a nettle sting: unpleasant but more irritating than painful. But there is a particular type of jellyfish called the Portuguese Man of War which has a very nasty sting, and can be found off Cornish waters and washed up on Cornish beaches. And are best left WELL ALONE!

  64 A large iron cooker, heated with coal or – as in this instance – wood.

  65 Bid you/asked you to.

  66 Top of the door frame.

  67 The nickname ‘glue-pot’ comes from joining together men and women in holy matrimony!

  68 A member of the clergy, such as a priest or vicar.

  69 Israel and Palestine. In the eleventh, twelth, and thirteenth centuries, European Christians fought Crusades to try to win the city of Jerusalem from Muslims.

  70 In eighteenth century England, paper was expensive, but not as expensive as parchment or vellum. Parchment was made from sheep or goat’s skin and, even more expensive, vellum was mad from calf’s skin. Paper was made from plant materials, generally linen taken from old rags, collected by the likes of a ‘rag and bone man’.

  71 Eighteenth century squires were powerful people. Legend has it that, in neighbouring Wales, a Squire Lloyd wanted to buy a farm that was spoiling the view from his house but the famer would not sell. So the squire reported his prize black ram missing, then had it lowered down the farmer’s chimney and into the house, at night. He then brought the constable to the farmhouse and had the farmer arrested for theft. He was hanged and the farm became the squire’s.

  72 Graceless boy.

  73 A bender – sixpence – was a lot of money for a boy to have. (Beer, for example, was less than a penny a pint.)

  74 By the end of the seventeenth/beginning of the eighteenth century, carriages had spring ‘shock absorbers’, stopping the passengers feeling every lump and bump and cart rut in the unmade-up roads, making journeys that much more comfortable.

  There are four ale houses in Minnock, but only one has two cellars: a secret one beside the ordinary cellar where the kegs of ale are stored. This is The Black Eye and, though the sign outside shows a sailor with a black eye-patch, the name is a pun – a play on words – for to give a bottle a black eye is to drain it empty… and there’s plenty of that goes on within!

  Sometimes, it is necessary to move some of the contraband about the village during daylight. This is safe enough, as long as it’s not witnessed by those few well-to-do folk who do NOT watch the wall75 when the gentlemen go by, and are likely to speak out of turn and tell the redcoats or the excisemen.

  Our neighbour Robert Treggan had just removed a small cask of rum from the secret cellar – where much of the smuggled goods are stored – and brought it up through the hatch into the bar, and was rolling it across the floor when there was a cry of “Reds!” and, seconds later, a swarm of redcoats came spilling through the door.

  I was seated beneath a table, surrounded by legs and feet but still with a good view of the action. I’d been watching Robert Treggan roll the cask, turned to the door at the cry of “Reds!” and turned back again, thinking our neighbour would be found out and carted off to jail… but the cask had disappeared.

  One minute it had been there, the next moment nothing.

  It had vanished into thin air.

  The leader of the soldiers, that crablanthorn76 Sergeant Byron, gave the order that none of us move, and a search was undertaken.

  “I’ve nothing to hide,” roared the landlord, Jake Polgate, “and if your clumsy men break so much as a bottle you’ll know all about it. Betty, keep an eye!”

  The drinkers roared their approval.

  Betty, the landlord’s wife, is a tall woman with arms the size of hams. Holding a bottle of blue glass in one hand, she was standing next to Robert Treggan, towering above him. She folded her arms and glared at the soldiers.

  shouted Sergeant Byron, but we were having none of it.

  Byron drew his sword. The sound of the blade against the scabbard is not a pleasant one. The room hushed. Like it or not, these were the King’s men and their powers are great. And, of course, we DID have something to hide – that cask of rum – wherever it had gone!

  I heard the redcoats go behind the bar and into the cellar but, with the entrance to the other, secret, cellar well hid, they came up empty handed. They looked under tables but all they found was me. I was dragged out by my ear.

  “What have we here?” said Byron.

  “Leave her alone!” someone shouted.

  “What were you doing under there?” demanded the sergeant.

  “Sitting,” I said.

  “What do you think she were doing?” demanded Betty Polgate. “She’s too big to stand beneath a table, ain’t she?”

  There were more roars of laughter.

  Mr Duggan ducked through the doorway and entered The Black Eye now. The room fell silent. He looked me up and down.

  “Ah, young Kitty Cask,” he said. “We meet again.” He turned to Sergeant Byron. “Anything?” he asked.

  “Nothing, sir,” said the redcoat.

  “Then we’re leaving,” said Mr Duggan. And they did.

  It was a good few minutes after the exciseman and the redcoats had gone that the coast was declared clear. And it was then I discovered how that little cask of rum had been magicked away…

  Betty Polgate lifted her skirt and petty coats and there it was beneath them! The drinkers roared their approval and raised their tankards as Robert Treggan gave her an exaggerated bow.

  “Why, thankee lady!” he said, as she sat down on the barrel with a laugh.

  I certainly had a story to tell my father when I got back home.

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  75 People turning away as smugglers pass with their contraband so, if asked by the authorities, they can genuinely say that they saw nothing! In some villages, just about everyone was happy about smuggling because it meant cheaper goods for everyone!

  76 Irritable man.

  I overheard something today and, though glad that I did so – so that I could pass on a warning – my heart sank at the news. Today has been one of those crisp, cold, days filled with sunshine that makes you glad to be alive. I was lying in my father’s boat, staring up at the sky, watching the birds wheel above me. I’ve heard people call them seagulls as if there were such a bird77! What I saw were blacked-headed gulls, common gulls and terns. All different, all scavengers and, like the rest of us in Minnock, living off the sea. I must have drifted off to sleep but, when I awoke, I heard two men talking as they passed me by. (The boat was pulled up onto the beach, above the high tide mark, and I was high enough up to be hidden from view.) I recognised both voices instantly, though they spoke in lowered tones. These were Mr Duggan and Sergeant Byron!

  “You’re sure the information is good this time?” asked Mr Duggan.

  “It was good last time, sir,” said Byron. “It’s just that Mrs Polgate was too clever by half with her dress.”

  “She won’t be able to play that trick a second time,” said Mr Duggan, “whatever she may think.”

  “We have them now,” said Byron. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  I shuddered. It was likely the sergeant could only have known about the landlady’s trick with
the dress if someone who had been there had told him later. And, from what Byron had said, someone – probably that same someone – had suggested that he raid The Black Eye in the first instance, for he would find the contraband being moved!

  After enough time had passed for me to be sure that the redcoat and the exciseman were long gone, I slipped out of the boat, jumped down to the ground, hurried up the shore and began to run homeward.

  I had to warn Father that there is a spy in our midst!

  Eliza was out when I arrived back home and little Esme was having a nap. I found Father sitting and staring into the fire, the dancing flame reflected in his eyes. I told him of what I had heard.

  He sucked upon his pipe before he spoke; a long-stemmed clay affair78. “Good girl!” he said, at last. “We can learn much from that conversation.”

  “That there’s a viper in the nest!” said I.

  Father nodded his head slowly. I don’t think he was ever as handsome a man as my brother, Jago, but he has kinder eyes. Far kinder eyes. “If that Sergeant Byron had just been talking of Betty’s hiding of the cask beneath her frills, it could simply have been overheard gossip from some brandy-face.79 It might even have been second-hand news, spoken by someone who’d heard it from someone else who’d been there.”

  I nodded again.

  “But the fact that the red said that he had raided the ale house on account of having information means that one of our number has been talking… but not one of those closest to me. Not one who knows all.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Because whoever told Sergeant Byron of the moving of some cargo did not know of the secret cellar, which would have been the greatest prize!”

  Of course! I wished that I’d thought of that. It seemed so obvious, now that my father had said it. The secret entrance to the secret cellar remained hidden. That had not been given away.

  “And, thanks to the quick thinking of Betty Polegate, the original information turned out to be three skips of a louse!80” he added.

  “So what will you do?” I asked.

  “From what you overheard, my clever Kitty, this informant has given Byron and Duggan more information, though we don’t yet know what.”

  “Be careful, Father!” I urged. “Whoever it is may have revealed you to be ‘Captain’.”

  He pulled his pipe from his mouth and grinned. “I’m always careful,” he said, “and, if he has told them I’m Captain, why haven’t they come to arrest me? Because they know they need proof first, and will have to catch me with the contraband! What’s more, this fellow – whoever he may be – could turn out to be little more than water in my shoe.”81 Then his face suddenly became serious. “Kitty –” he began.

  “Yes?”

  “That wreck the other night. I know you’ll have heard talk of all the booty claimed… of all that cargo taken –” he paused to find the right words “– but know that Jago and the men saved many a life that night too, Frenchman or not.”

  I could not tell Father of what I’d seen down on the beach, for that would have meant my telling him I had been there.

  “I might have done things differently. I cannot say for sure, for I was in Fowle and it was your brother who had to make decisions, on the spur of the moment in the heart of a storm… Do not be angry with him, Kitty.”

  “I’m not angry with Jago,” I lied.

  My father snorted at the comment, tobacco smoke coming from his nostrils like a dragon’s. “Not angry with Jago? Why, if the looks you gave him were daggers, he’d have been stabbed a thousand times!” He grinned again. “You’re like your dear, departed mother. She was always quick to take the owl.”82

  I like it when Father compares me to Mother, though I’ve never been clear as to why anger should be likened to owl-snatching. Though, I suppose, a snatched owl would be far from happy!

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  77 A seagull isn’t a type of bird like, say, a robin or a sparrow is. It’s a general term for different types of gull that live near the sea.

  78 Ever since Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco back to England from the Americas in the late sixteenth century, clay pipes were popular. In the seventeenth century, there were a huge number of clay-pipe smokers. In the 18th century, they declined in number – especially with the ever-rising tax on tobacco -- and it became more fashionable for the upper classes to take snuff. The longer the stem, the cooler the smoke and the greater the likelihood the stem would break.

  79 Drunkard.

  80 Worth little or nothing.

  81 Annoying.

  82 “Take the owl” means to ‘get angry’, though the origins of the phrase are unclear. Owls give out a terrible screech when hunting which could, perhaps, be compared with a screech of rage.

  I write this with a shaking hand, for events have taken a terrible turn tonight. Father, in the guise of Captain, was supervising the unloading of some free-trade booty in Hangman’s Cove when disaster struck. Redcoats seemed to appear out of nowhere!

  I suppose I should say that although my father has never made secret from me the fact that he’s a smuggler, he has always forbidden my being there when the goods are brought ashore.

  “It’s dangerous enough to be caught with it stashed and stowed away,” he once told me, “but on the beach at night there’s the darkness, sea, rolling barrels and crates to contend with, quite apart from the dangers of the excisemen. It’s no place for you, no matter how bold and brave you be.”

  And, in return, I’ve never told him that I’ve become very good at creeping out of the house at night, undetected by Eliza, and following them!

  This evening, in the guise of Captain, he gave his men extra instruction. He didn’t tell them that he had fears of a spy somewhere along the line, but he did give orders that they be ‘extra careful’ and he posted extra lookouts on the cliffs.

  The excisemen often post lookouts of their own. We call ’em watchers or watchmen. More times than not, they might be encouraged to take a drink or two or, those less willing, might find themselves with a sack over their head and trussed like a chicken for a night on the heather before being discovered next day! It’s harder when there are groups of them or an eager watchman rides back and forth across the clifftops on horseback, eyes peeled for any sign of smugglers at work.

  Satisfied that they were unseen, my father then led his men down through the secret passage and out of the hidden cave mouth onto the beach. I crouched and followed them before the lookouts were even in place, watching for redcoats.

  It was a dark night and the vessel my father and the men of Minnock were waiting for was painted black. I knew its name to be The Selkie,83 but this too was painted out. Even though we knew that it was out there, I found it impossible to see.

  Uncle Jonah had said that much of the success of the freetrader is down to advance planning. You need:

  • A specified cargo (so you don’t end up with crates of lace when you’re planning a celebration needing plenty of brandy).

  • The ship carrying the cargo to be at the agreed place at the agreed time (so that everyone is in position, ready and waiting).

  • The ship to be as camouflaged/hidden as possible (because prevention men84 are everywhere).

  • To take precautions to avoid the prevention men (which is nothing but the best common sense).

  • Enough men, horses and wagons to carry the cargo (because you certainly don’t want to have to leave some behind).

  • Somewhere big enough and safe enough to store the cargo, once ashore85.

  Hiding the cargo in the cave at Hangman’s Cove, where the loot itself comes ashore, saves a lot of manpower. No need for endless horses or carts to carry it off into the night, increasing the chance of being caught, red-handed.86

  In order to let the smugglers know that the ship was out there, one of its crew fired a barrel-less pistol with gunpowder in the pan, creating a flash of blue light, without the loud BANG.87

  ‘Goose’ – our neighb
our Robert Treggan – fired a responding flash to show the coast was clear.88 It was time for action. In next to no time, rowing boats were coming into view, laden with goodies.89

  But then the best-laid plan went well awry. As the cargo of tea, lace, whiskey, and baccy was rowed ashore, the redcoats appeared – not from the clifftops but from the cave itself, where they had been lying in wait.

  It was Tom Tregowan who gave the warning shout and, so that others were left in no doubt that there was trouble, my father fired a flintlock in the air. What happened next was pandemonium. Some redcoats fired their rifles and, while they reloaded, others fired, then others.

  The smugglers threw themselves behind the nearest rock or crate or barrel. The few of them with pistols returned fire. I saw Tom Tregowan draw a dagger from his boot and one giant of a man – a farmer by the name of Garton – lifted a barrel and threw it in front of a group of advancing soldiers. It bounced as it hit the sand, without breaking, and rolled into the men like a ball into skittles,90 the soldiers scattering or falling.

  There was chaos, with arm to arm fighting, shouting, grunts and cries. Rowing boats, weighed down with illegal cargo, were being rowed frantically away from the action.

  The darkness was both an advantage and disadvantage: I couldn’t clearly see the enemy but they couldn’t clearly see me. I couldn’t tell friend from foe, but neither could they. A shot from a redcoat’s rifle would give away his position, and one of ours might fire back, flinging themselves to one side so that, should the soldiers return fire, their target would be replaced by thin air.

  Once fired, a rifle had to be reloaded down its muzzle91, an action quite difficult in the dark… but it could very easily used as another kind of weapon. With a bayonet92 fixed at the end, and held out in front of them, a redcoat’s rifle became quite a spear: good for ripping open sacks when on the look-out for contraband; for prodding haystacks when in search of hiding men; or forcing smugglers to keep their distance in the dark on the beach at Hangman’s Cove or, worse still, lancing them.