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IREX
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A mystery novel set in Victorian Britain, 1890.
Written by Alan Purusram (writing as Carl Rackman)
Irex is a psychological drama following the characters and
events aboard an ill-fated sailing ship whilst on its maiden
voyage, told from the point of view of the ship’s troubled
captain. It is based on an actual event, the wreck of the
sailing vessel Irex, which took place in 1890; though the
event is real, the story and characters are entirely
fictional.
A parallel narrative follows a fictional investigation
several weeks later as a coroner tries to unravel the
mysterious chain of events that led to its sinking, while
trying to find out why his inquest is facing stiff opposition
from powerful forces in the British Establishment.
140,000 words. (This excerpt 10,000 words).
PROLOGUE
Isle of Wight
Monday, 3rd February 1890
The cab pulled up on the cobbled street outside the Newport
law courts with a clatter of hooves, the horse’s huffing
breath accompanying the muttered imprecations of the driver at
the miserable weather. Mr Blake alighted from the carriage
steps, stiff from travelling, the cab rocking with his heavy
movements. He had left Winchester at half past four that
morning in midwinter darkness, successively transferring from
coach to train to ferry to train again, finally to this cab,
enduring icy fog at one extreme to the present steel-grey
overcast, chased by unwelcome fusillades of spitty rain driven
by a biting wind. To say he was merely cold was a grave
disservice to the bone-chilled discomfort he felt. He spared a
thought for the cabbie, exposed to the elements, and
generously pressed a sixpence into the man’s half-frozen hand,
blue-white as milk; the cabbie’s lips barely moved to voice
his mumbled appreciation.
Mr Blake was a tall man, and his black greatcoat flapped
around him as he retrieved his case and replaced his hat,
defying the squally gusts that still assaulted the island. He
briskly negotiated the slick steps of the law courts, his
billowing apparel presenting a brooding aspect which quite
belied both the man and his purpose.
As he reached the glass-panelled door, a respectful
attendant pulled it open in time for Mr Blake to be swept in
by the swirling wind, and closed it as quickly as was polite,
glancing through the glass and exchanging nods with the numbed
cab driver, who was quick to touch his cap and clatter away
from the kerbside.
Inside, Blake shook off his greatcoat. The interior of the
courthouse was warm and dry, with the musty, institutional
odour typical of all Her Majesty’s official buildings. Though
the Isle of Wight was one of England’s geographical
backwaters, it basked in a peculiar grandeur as the favourite
corner of the monarch’s expansive Empire; consequently it was
inordinately blessed with the latest indulgences. The humble
Newport court house boasted such luxuries as central heating,
interior lighting, neatly furnished offices and
accommodations, and a dedicated telegraph station.
The reception clerk, expecting him, greeted Blake by name,
took his coat and withdrew to the offices behind him. There
were a few short, muffled exchanges through the partly opened
door, carried in Blake’s direction by a rich waft of warm air
and aromatic pipe tobacco smoke that preceded the clerk’s
return to the front desk.
“Mr Blake, sir, please follow me to Court Number 1. Mr
Peabody and the other gentlemen will receive you there.” Blake
nodded again, content with the very British decorum of these
initial exchanges before the grittier work began.
The young man led him through the large double doors that
opened from the entrance hall into an austere, parquet-floored
corridor. It had probably once been a colonnade – brick
archways filled in by either blank plaster faces or functional
arched windows lined the wall to the outside, while polished
doors stood at spaced intervals down the other wall, with a
few desultory figures gracing the benches next to them; Blake
guessed they were probably attorneys or reporters.
The temperature, even here, was a drowsy warmth fed by the
heating pipes along the skirting, hissing faintly as they
conveyed hot water around the building. The same musty smell
of papers, ink and ancient bound volumes combined with that of
hot, government-issue paint from the pipes, an atmosphere as
familiar to Mr Blake as the smell of burning coke to a
railwayman.
Through the windows, the gusts of the waning January storms
still pulled the stripped branches of the trees this way and
that, though less violently now compared to the wild, winter
blasts that had mauled them in previous weeks. Violent was the
right word for the season it had been; and that, of course,
was the sole reason for Mr Blake’s presence in Newport at all
– men had died violent deaths, and it was his appointed duty
to investigate the matter to Her Majesty’s satisfaction.
The young clerk knocked lightly at the oak doors marked
‘Court Room No.1’, waited a respectful beat, then opened them
to the green-trimmed courtroom where a small group of suited
men were gathered before the bench.
“Mr Blake, sir! Welcome to the island!”
Mr Peabody was the senior magistrate on the island, and it
seemed that the Almighty had schemed to appoint Blake’s polar
opposite alongside him on the bench of the inquest. An apple-
cheeked and energetic man with impressive but slightly old-
fashioned sideburns, whose manner was effusive to the point of
irritation, Peabody cut a marked contrast with the tall,
phlegmatic and clean-shaven Blake, who used his words
sparingly, if at all. Peabody addressed the other men in the
room.
“Sirs, may I present Mr Frederick Blake, Her Majesty’s
Coroner for Hampshire County, presiding inquisitor. Mr Blake,
may I introduce Mr Henry Rudd, who will be taking the third
chair.” Peabody fussed around the men, continuing to introduce
the other members of the court as the handshakes ensued,
before launching off once again.
“I trust your journey was satisfactory? The crossing was not
too rough, I hope?” In truth, Blake had been green for most of
the two hours on the lurching steam ferry from Portsmouth, but
given the circumstances, he was struck by the insensitivity of
the question. He considered such mild privations unworthy of
comment in comparison to the tragedy they had been assigned to
unravel. “Yes, Mr Peabody, quite satisfactory, Now, to the
matter at hand…?”
“Quite, sir, quite!” cried the magistrate. “It’s a devilish
affair, this one! There will be some work ahead to get to the
bottom of this, hmm?” He arched his bushy eyebrows
theatrically, pursing moistened lips and appeared to be
waiting for the Coroner’s polite agreement, which never came.
“Yes, well, of course!” the magistrate pressed on. “You have
the appropriate documents and the lists: survivors, dead and
missing; witnesses, both able-bodied and those still in
hospital; and statements that have been submitted thus far.”
He indicated the neat portfolios placed upon the bench for the
three who would preside over the inquest. “Naturally I have
already attended to the jury selection, and that the key
witnesses shall attend the inquisition in turn as follows…”
As Peabody rattled on, Blake sat down at the bench and
leafed through the pages of documents. The initial statements
regarding the incident were quite disturbing, for the most
part. Mr Blake had been briefed by no less a personage than
the Solicitor General himself, pointing out that certain
witness statements in the case bore some troubling testimony
which may be of some embarrassment to the Crown. In the bland
language of the civil servant, Blake had been asked to
exercise the utmost discretion in his summarising, although he
did not infer at any point that he was to curtail or strike
testimony. It would fall to the Board of Trade inquiry, which
would not be sitting for several weeks, to wrangle with the
causes and effects of the tragedy, but for the moment, it
appeared that in the matter of the loss of eight lives aboard
the Sailing Vessel Irex, the findings of Mr Frederick Blake
were to be the sole arbiter of truth, insofar as the truth was
to be uncovered.
PART ONE
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the
running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls
crying.
- John Masefield, Sea Fever
CHAPTER ONE
Near Glasgow
Monday, 9th December 1889
Barely two months had passed, and already William Hutton was
decidedly restless ashore. It was said among mariners that the
sea was a fickle, (some would say cruel) mistress, and this
was true. Yet she had the most extraordinary and pervasive
pull on the spirits of men that no mere woman could hope to
equal. Hutton had stepped ashore at Greenock after another
gruelling nine-month odyssey, more than two hundred days at
sea – days of relentless battles with weather, malnutrition,
disease and of course, the sea herself; then there was that
peculiar condition, known only to sailing masters and long-
term prisoners, of utter loneliness for weeks on end.
Upon his return, Hutton had spent several days alone with
his gentle Sarah, who had made the unenviable choice in her
life to be a seaman’s wife. Time took on a very different
character for the wife left behind; when she waved away a
husband before a voyage, she knew too well that even should
the voyage go to plan, it would be at least eight months
before she would see him again. If there were complications,
that time could stretch from upwards of a year all the way to
eternity.
Even if she were joyfully reunited at the appointed time, it
was to a man who was a hollow and distant echo of the one she
waved away – hardened by harsh experience. Malnourished, with
sinew and bone pushing through skin as brown and dry as old
leather; with coarse hair, perhaps a few teeth short, sporting
any number of cuts, scars, lesions and boils; sometimes
missing a digit, or even a limb. Beyond the physical ravages,
there was always something else – a shadow behind the eyes, a
perceptible reflection of things seen, things done, things
said; events which had scarred his soul, and which could never
be articulated to the wholesome, fragrant woman who sought
only to salve and comfort. Her moist lips and soft body, so
sorely missed for months, simply became too much to savour at
once, such was her jarring contrast to the harshness he had
endured for long months at sea.
Sometimes, once he had found his voice again, Hutton would
regale his wife with the wonders he had seen – dancing aurorae
in the polar skies, vast icebergs that could sink ships,
exotic peoples and their verdant, mysterious homelands. But of
the bitterest moments of his voyages, he had little, if
anything, to say. It was challenging enough to adjust to the
new sensation of being intimate again with someone known and
loved; he still felt strangely distant, as if the luxury of
human company, intimate touch and the trust of another were
things forbidden, although they were never withheld.
The life of a sailing master was indeed a lonely one.
Hutton’s paymasters were the distinguished family that ran
the illustrious ship owners and trading firm of J.D. Clink and
Co. of Greenock. At least that is what he would tell any
person who asked; to him, they were a second-degree company
who ran their affairs with a degree of parsimony that was
notable even for the times. Their interests lay principally in
ships, trade, and shareholders – any other matters were
secondary, or in the case of the beasts of burden they
employed as crew, inconsequential. In their favour, (and for
this Hutton was grudgingly grateful) they allowed the masters
of their vessels a degree of autonomy that was positively
liberal, and dividends for the master were relatively
generous. It was a point of deep regret to Hutton that he and
Sarah did not adopt the custom encouraged by many of the ship
operators: that a captain should take his wife along for the
months-long journey.
Hutton had once served as third mate on a flying West Indian
clipper, where his captain, the highly-esteemed Mr Corden, had
kept a marvellous wife alongside him – a motherly presence to
the young apprentices, and trusted friend to the forecastle
crew. She had once darned Hutton’s socks, an act he considered
an excessive benevolence amid the grim life aboard ship.
Indeed, she had made herself the darling of all hands: a soft,
even-tempered foil to the brash, hard men around them. Her
humanity was a warming presence in the coldness of the
inhumane all around; she seemed to carry an impregnable aura
of civility, so that around her was never heard a single
blasphemy or profanity – the men themselves had seen to that.
One look from her studied eye would evoke a red-faced shame in
the face of an intemperate crewman, however drunk.
Hutton often wondered whether the presence of his own
gentle-spirited Sarah might not ease his own journeys with the
roughneck crews he encountered at Clink and Co. – after all,
only an empty nest beckoned to her at home. Good sailing crews
were hard to find – easier times were to be had aboard
steamships these days – and those that were regularly
available tended to hail from the tougher environs of Glasgow,
London and Liverpool. But each time he mulled the benefits
that a pretty and kind Christian woman might provide to the
men aboard, he arrived back at the unavoidable conclusion that
his wife’s kindness was not matched by the vitality and
resilience essential to survive the sea, who was a cruel
mistress indeed. Her constitution was not well-suited to such
demands, and he surmised, as she did, that her presence would
become an extra burden in an already heavy load. As far as
Hutton was concerned, the sea was his jealous mistress alone,
who would not tolerate a competitor for his attention as soon
as the ship left the harbour.
Separation bred wonderful benefits of its own – coming home
was the sweetest sensation Hutton ever experienced, and it
never lost its excitement nor its power. Being reunited with
Sarah was akin to a desert-parched man’s first draught of
water for Hutton; such was the whirlwind of physical release
regaining one other as husband and wife. But he usually
discovered, with profound guilt, that he soon tired of her
constant company, pleasurable as it was.
In his nine months of absence it had been Sarah, not he, who
had run the household, handling the hundreds of everyday
crises and mishaps that are part of home and family life. As
Hutton had faced storms, torn sails, shifting cargoes and
injured crewmen, Sarah had battled sickness and doctors’
bills, food shortages, falling roof tiles and church politics.
Whereas Hutton was silent about his own battles, he found
Sarah’s voluble accounts of hers as wearisome as she found
them cathartic. And in their most tender exchanges as husband
and wife, when she coaxed from him those most profound
expressions of his soul, he found himself becoming
uncomfortable; he sought space from the strong emotions that
crowded him, as if afraid they might take root in his
consciousness and reduce him in his own eyes to a lesser man.
For there was nothing Hutton feared in life as much as
losing his considerable powers of self-control, self-
confidence and self-awareness; their loss would be as
injurious to him as losing an eye or a leg. To lose them would
be to lose the very heart of the sea captain that beat within
him, the unflappable confidence that informed his every
thought both at sea and ashore; but worse, to lose his sea
command would indelibly separate him from his dark, brooding
mistress, the sea herself, without whose ministrations he was
doomed to be simply ordinary.
Hutton lay awake in their bed in his comfortable home, as
his wife slept fitfully beside him. The night before a
departure had always been the worst night to sleep, and this
night seemed worse than most. They were alone in the house,
Hutton having said his goodbyes to his two grown-up children
the day before – they lived in their own homes in Glasgow and
had gone back up before their own busy lives began that
morning. Hutton’s son was in the final year of his
apprenticeship, though there was no seafaring life for him –
he had secured indentures with a company of attorneys – and
the girl, a nineteen-year-old facsimile of her mother, was
preparing for her own daunting voyage, heading off to the
missions with her new husband, a serious, young Baptist
minister. Hutton remembered the wedding more than two years
ago. He had recently returned from a voyage on his last ship,
the Pomona – a fine three-masted clipper of 1200 tons. The
family had insisted on waiting until his return - this didn’t
endear him to his new in-laws, adding several months to their
fiscal plans, but his subsequent dividend cheered them
somewhat as a substantial contribution to his daughter’s
dowry. It occurred to him in the same thought that since then
he had completed two more voyages as captain. Life goes on,
with or without me.
He stared into a thick darkness, for gaslights had not been
installed in his village, and with the moon hidden behind the
scudding clouds, and the thick drapes across the windows, the
darkness was almost absolute.
He smoothed his hand behind his head, and breathed slowly in
and out. His heart had finally stopped pounding from the dream
that had awoken him this time, another of the jittery phantoms
that usually plagued him before every trip. He often dreamed
of sailing, but never in any amusing or whimsical fashion –
no, his sailing dreams always featured fantastical calamities:
leaving port without charts, sextant or clock; sailing into
tiny inlets with no hope of being able to extricate the ship;
and then of course there was the surreal: sailing a ship with
only one mast, or a crew of children, or, like this night, a
voyage beset by monsters. This monster in particular sent a
chill throughout his body, a black, vicious prowling beast
that was found aboard the ship, a predator with only eyes,
claws and teeth, terrorising his crew and closing relentlessly
on his cabin as he watched, terrified but powerless to stop
its progress.
So Hutton breathed, allowed himself to fully wake, and with
his ears searched out the many small sounds that occupied the
darkness – unfamiliar sounds to one whose senses were tuned to
the groans of steel hulls, the snap of sails and the creaks of
hemp and steel cables.
Satisfied that he was not going to drop back into his
disturbing dreams, he stirred over onto his side, while his
wife sighed and turned in sympathy. Hutton thought again of
the possibility of being able to share his bed at sea with
Sarah – it would be a rare thing – and let his mind wander to
ideas of trading in his contract with Clink of Greenock to
perhaps seek out a berth with one of the more reputable
Glasgow companies that better suited such frivolity. After
all, he was barely fifty, had several successful voyages
behind him, and was building on his fine record as a seaman,
mate and master…
A sudden gust of wind outside the window whipped his drowsy
musings into sharp wakefulness. A man who had spent his life
at sea could read the wind like an ordinary man read a
newspaper. The slightest veer or gust speaks its intent to a
seaman, and Hutton could tell that this was a south-westerly
that promised worse to come. It would mean a busy and
challenging day if he and his new ship were going to make the
right impression on her new owners. As the possibilities,
calamities and solutions raced through Hutton’s mind, he
became aware of his wife’s changed breathing and turned to
sense her eyes open, looking at him beyond the darkness.
“Try to sleep, my love.” she murmured. Though he had kept
her largely ignorant of the various indignities that seafaring
inflicted upon the human body, mind and spirit, Sarah had a
wife’s instinctive, intimate knowledge of him that defied his
silences. She just knew. “. You’ll be fine I’ll be fine. The
Lord knows.” Having spoken this peace over him, her breathing
changed once again, and she slipped back into sleep.
Hutton was a man of what was commended as “good Christian
character” – that highly valued middle-class combination of
status, charity and reserve. He knew that he and Sarah shared
a much greater commitment to the Christian religion than the
conventional piety of the times; Hutton had been ordained as a
lay minister in the Baptist tradition for several years, while
his wife believed in the Almighty God and her Saviour with a
special, personal fervour. It seemed natural to him that
civilised people should add a fear of God to their endeavours;
in Hutton’s experience, his God had never failed to preserve
their fortunes as husband and wife, whether together or, as
was more frequently the case, apart. Hutton tried to mark
Greenwich midnight each day on his travels, as he knew that
was when Sarah would be praying for his safe passage and
courage in the face of challenge; this was often difficult in
practice, as midnight in Glasgow was six a.m. in Bombay, four
p.m. in San Francisco and midday in Sydney.
It was such a symbol of the modern age that men could be so
mobile on the face of the earth! Had God ever wished for us to
take such command of his realm? Did He feel threatened by our
brazen wresting of his sovereignty over the earth? Of course
not, mused Hutton, for there was always the sea. Man would
never be in control, not of the elemental forces that
commanded the sea; the indifferent deep would always wield its
power, shrugging off human lives as thoughtlessly as a man
killed microbes with carbolic soap.
These musings were allowing the tiredness Hutton felt to
overcome the thousand petty anxieties that the prospect of a
winter voyage inflicts on a captain; he barely registered the
distant chimes of the church clock that told him it was three
a.m., and slipped into a mercifully dreamless slumber, to
await the dawn.
The Huttons avoided painful goodbyes by the expedient of
simplicity. There were no open-ended conversations, no
unresolved business; merely a final hug, kisses, a few
privately-shed tears, and the simplest of words. They prayed –
as they always did – then Hutton took his leave, with his sea
trunk, navigational instruments and day bag packed into the
company carriage sent from Greenock to fetch him.
The wind still whipped around Sarah, who cut an upright but
slightly forlorn figure as she waved from the step, knowing
she would not hear from her husband for many months. In recent
years, the luxury of telegrams had made it possible to hear
word from her husband, their rarity providing a very welcome
surprise. The cost of such contact was prohibitive, and
usually only materialised if Hutton had managed to conduct
some side-business of his own; the consequence being that
telegrams would be stamped from such diverse places as Durban
or Jakarta rather than the heaving ports of San Francisco or
Calcutta.
Hutton watched her waving figure recede, knowing she would
wait until the coach was gone before retreating to her bedroom
to sob out the waves of emotion she managed to hold back
whilst in public view; his own thoughts remained trapped
within the minutiae of preparation, troubled only occasionally
by the gnawing sense of shame he felt at subjecting such a
fine woman to a life of relative separation. He resolved to
seek out a berth with Carmichaels of Glasgow upon his return –
after all, there had only ever been one person in his life
whom he would ever have willingly shared a sea voyage; yet he
had just left her weeping behind him, condemning her to be
apart from him for months to come. He offered silent prayers
to their God for Sarah’s well-being and comfort; such prayers
brought none to himself, for he wrestled with the unwelcome
sense that the only person who could ensure her comfort was
leaving her behind once again.
As the village faded out behind him, so his thoughts grew
ever more focused on the voyage ahead. He had spent many days
with his reliable first mate Irvine and the crotchety
sailmaker Colquhoun, planning and cutting the sails for the
first of these winter voyages – it would be a maiden voyage
for their stout new ship, launched just two months ago; as
such her sailing characteristics were impossible to fully
gauge. The three men combined almost a hundred years of
sailing experience between them, which would ensure that their
ship would depart with the best sail they could carry.
The carriage jostled round the road from the Timber Ponds on
the banks of the Clyde, clearing the hills that blocked the
view that always brought him mixed emotions – the man-made
forest of masts and belching chimneys that signalled the port
of Greenock. They stood out against the white and grey clouds
that blanketed the restless sky, a latticework of black masts
and lines that intersected at all angles, a dazzling sight for
an landsman, but one that made the seaman’s heart inside Will
Hutton beat faster, and summoned the hum of nervous energy
that galvanised him while he rehearsed the mental preparations
for safely navigating his particular vessel from among the
mess of masts and hulls to the open sea.
The scenery rapidly changed, merging from the pleasant
rolling hills and green slopes of God’s hand to the fire and
metal that was Man’s modern industrial landscape. The road now
followed the main Glasgow railway line, and Hutton regarded
the modern locomotives rushing carriages of passengers, First,
Second and Third Class, towards the port, and others returning
with their precious cargoes of jute, grain, wool and meat,
brought from the corners of the Empire by men such as he. Next
he passed the gas works and timber yards of Port Glasgow, and
then smelled rather than saw the point that it merged into the
industrial centre of Greenock itself. The giant foundries
belched acrid fumes, smoke being whipped by the wind from the
impossibly tall chimneys as the steel for the next generation
of ships was poured – berths lay side by side as new keels
were laid, and other hulls rose from the blocks and ways as
hundreds of grimy figures toiled to bring them into being. It
was an act of creation on a scale unseen in the whole of human
history – Hephaestus himself never had a workshop like this.
“Clydebuilt” was still the final word in ship construction,
and any man who went out in a Clydebuilt ship had a fighting
chance in almost any sea.
Hutton was being drawn in, energised in his task like a
dropped coal replaced in a fire. Thoughts of home and Sarah
were banished, without any conscious effort on his part, as he
drew closer to the heart of the docklands. The sounds of
industry, the roar of furnaces, the shock and crash of large
metal pieces being dropped and placed, the hammering of rivets
and the pulsing of steam engines was a continuous dissonance
that drowned out any other sound. Only the piercing cry of
seagulls was any reminder that this was the same world in
which he had awoken, that Nature was still scrapping for the
right to survive in spite of Man’s desire to conquer it
through his industry and ingenuity. And yet there was still
the rushing wind, blowing the smoke and fumes in a relentless
swirl around the yards, reminding Man once again that though
he was master of many things, the natural processes of the
earth remained tantalisingly beyond his control.
All at once, they had attained the town and the entrance to
the docks. Now, amid the brick and stone facades of the recent
Victorian edifices and the humped, cobbled streets lined with
modern gas lighting, there existed another hum of human
activity, of a different intensity to the choking industrial
sector; here there were simply hundreds of people, their
clothing and faces a vibrant reflection of the Empire, teeming
in a constant blur of movement, like a nest of exotic insects
upturned and scattered. Trams rolled up and down the streets,
their bells ringing constantly as pedestrians mazed between
them, tempting fate; carts and carriages moved among the mess
of people like barges parting the waters. Here and there
played small tragedies – beggars, blind and lame seamen
desperate for relief and the ministrations of the ubiquitous
charity workers and latterly, Salvation Army soldiers; an
upset cart, its last movement a step too far for the law of
gravity, had spilled its precious load of peaches – its
distraught driver attempted to salvage what he could,
screaming damnation at the swiftly gathered opportunists and
urchins who descended on the site of his misfortune to pillage
these precious treasures from the manure-spread gutter.
Hutton’s carriage slowed, negotiating the crush of people to
reach the entrance gate to the Victoria Dock, where his new
ship awaited. Free from the thronging crowds on the main
street, the carriage clattered through the high gate and
entered the dock.
A different level of frenetic activity seized this part of
the town – a long queue of immigrants and passengers attended
the Customs House, while the row of large warehouses were a
jumbled mass of shouts, bids and counter-offers as the morning
trade picked up. Dozens of horses and vans were lined up ready
to distribute the spoils of Empire to the corners of the
Mother Country. A bewildering buzz of voices, accents and
languages underlay the cries of gulls, the hissing of the
ubiquitous steam cranes and loaders, and finally, the sound of
the sea. This was Hutton’s place, and as the carriage followed
the tramlines along the dockside where the huge cranes rolled,
he picked out the ship, his ship, from the rows of latticed
masts, and his heart gave an involuntary leap.
The carriage pulled to a stop and Hutton stepped out into
the sharp, blustery wind to take in the sight of Clink and
Co.’s newest and grandest addition – the full-rigged sailing
ship Irex.
Chapter Two
Isle of Wight
Tuesday, 4th February 1890
The Clerk to the Court called proceedings to order as Mr
Blake and his two colleagues took their places at the bench.
Blake explained the purpose and scope of the inquest (“to
determine, to Her Majesty’s satisfaction, the cause and
circumstances of the deaths aboard the sailing vessel Irex
during the period from 10th December 1889 to 26th January
1890”) and proceeded to brief the jury of twelve men. He had
no sooner finished when a liveried clerk entered by the double
doors opposite the bench. The constable, stationed outside to
prevent casual and uninvited gawkers from entering the court
in session, followed immediately behind, and a small buzz of
interest followed among the dozen or so gathered in the
courtroom.
The clerk received permission to approach the bench, and a
sealed letter was passed to Blake. He remained unfussed,
placing his half-moon spectacles on his nose, opening the
envelope and unfolding the thin telegram paper contained
within. He read it, frowning, and his mouth twisted in
displeasure, but swiftly recovered. Peabody the magistrate, to
his left, practically wriggled in anticipation, and it was all
he could do to hold his tongue.
Blake passed him the telegram. The buzz of conversation
reached a level intolerable to the Clerk to the Court, a
beefy, well-fed man with a serious, almost menacing demeanour,
who snapped the gallery to order. Peabody skimmed the telegram
in seconds, his bushy eyebrows knitted in a frown that
mirrored Blake’s. The clerk then passed it to Rudd, the lesser
figure of the triumvirate on Blake’s right; he read it, pursed
his lips and sent it back to Blake.
Blake leaned forward, steepled his fingers and glanced at
the Clerk, who approached the bench. At a few low words from
Blake, he nodded, moved front and centre and, facing the
courtroom doors, announced “Clear the Court!”
The jury bailiff immediately moved to usher the jury through
their side door, whilst the two attendants either side of the
doors did the same for the small group of newspapermen,
visitors and interested parties. The constable closed the
door, leaving the three on the bench with the Clerk and
stenographer, all men quiet, as the quiet hiss of the central
heating and ticking of the large clock on the side wall seemed
to amplify in the silence.
Finally Mr Blake addressed them.
“I should like to record that at the request of the Lord
Chancellor, this inquest shall be henceforth conducted in
closed court. Mr Clerk, the jury is dismissed; only witnesses,
advocates and officers of the Court shall be admitted as long
as the court is in session. Are my instructions clear?”
“Perfectly clear sir. The inquest is in closed court.”
“Very well. We shall adjourn until nine o’clock tomorrow
morning.”
The Clerk turned smartly to the court reporter, who finished
picking at the new stenograph machine and presented the roll
to him. One of the attendants passed outside into the
colonnade corridor and his words were lost as the door closed
behind him. The raised voices of protest from the newspapermen
that met his words were still audible through the oak.
“As I said, Mr Blake, a devilish affair indeed.” murmured
Peabody. “Why should The Lord Chancellor, of all people, not
only take an interest in our provincial shipwreck, but seek to
influence the proceedings? I have never heard of such
manoeuvring.”
Rudd actually looked stricken, agitated and wide-eyed; but
Blake merely stood, shuffled his papers and retrieved his
portmanteau from the floor to receive them.
“Gentlemen, I entrust this matter to your extreme
discretion.”
The somewhat embarrassed agreement of his colleagues
immediately followed this statement, so Blake dismissed the
court staff and stepped down to the floor. The disturbed
weather of yesterday had finally blown itself out, giving way
to a hard frost, and a stillness that was uneasy after almost
two months of continuous south-westerly blasts. Mr Blake did
not relish leaving the drowsy warmth of the court house for
the freezing pinch outside, but he felt sure that a brisk ride
back to his hotel would surely focus his mind in preparation
for the report he would write.
Blake pushed open the hotel reception door to a welcome wave
of raw, dry heat created by the well-stocked fire crackling in
the hearth of the lounge. The receptionist was also the
landlady; a vivacious, well-preserved woman in middle age, she
offered a cheerful greeting and retrieved his key. He had
tried to converse politely with her, according to custom, on
his day of arrival; but she had swept aside his pleasantries
with an overpowering familiarity that was disconcerting, even
brazen. He was prepared to endure another bout of this before
escaping to his room.
“How are we, Mr Blake? You’re looking a mite troubled, if I
may say! I can offer you a nice cup of tea and a cuddle by the
fire if it would help?” Mrs Orchard’s coquettish affectations
were slightly wearing – though by no means unattractive, she
projected her fading beauty with immodesty, rendering her
overt flirtation with any male that fell within her orbit
tedious rather than alluring. Blake imagined her thirty years
before, probably the local belle, hotly pursued by the worthy
men of the parish as a trophy wife. It was a common fate for a
woman endowed with youth and uncommon beauty; married too
soon, only to be left on the shelf before her time by the
early death of a much older husband.
Mrs Orchard, to her great credit, had done well for herself
once those attributes had waned; she had used whatever wealth
she undoubtedly had accrued from the arrangement to make
herself a decent living. She ran a tight house, striking a
shrewd balance between frugality in expenditure with good
housekeeping and comfortable hospitality. It was possible to
consider her best days as still before her, as a free woman of
self-sufficient means; yet she clung to her pretensions of
outward beauty, probably because she had been judged by that
sole criterion her entire life. Blake longed to tell her this,
but feared opening the door to her prurient entreaties.
“No thank you, Mrs Orchard – most kind, but I have much work
to do.”
Blake was thus ensconced in his room at around three p.m.,
perusing the court papers and particularly the witness
statements at his desk, when he heard heavy footfalls in the
corridor outside. They stopped outside his door, and he was
already rising from the desk when three loud, rapid knocks
rattled it on its hinges. He opened to find a red-faced Mr
Peabody.
“Mr Blake, I have some terrible news”, Peabody announced
without his customary preamble. “Mr Rudd has met with a most
unfortunate accident. I am very afraid to tell you that he is
quite dead. I’m sorry, sir.”
Blake absorbed this information with surprising reserve, and
opened the door wide. “Come, come inside. What happened, Mr
Peabody?”
Peabody stepped into the room, shaking somewhat, whether
from the cold or the shock, Blake couldn’t tell. The men took
seats around the fire – Blake taking the time to light his
pipe as Mr Peabody considered where to start, eyeing Blake for
a cue that never came.
“It was a horse! A cab horse, as I believe. It bolted down
Main Street as the unfortunate man was leaving the main
telegraph office. He was struck hard and his neck was broken.
A most unfortunate accident, Mr Blake. He was taken to the
hospital but they were quite unable to revive him, of course.”
“Indeed?”
“A constable attended shortly afterwards, as you know the
constabulary is only opposite” – naturally, Blake did not know
this, but let the point drop – “but there seemed to be no
reason why the horse should bolt like that.”
Blake remembered the placid horse that had drawn his cab
from the station that morning: a skinny mare that endured the
weather and cold with a stoic calm. He was not a horse person,
and only had seen enough of their behaviour in service to
wonder why such large, powerful animals allowed themselves
such quiet acquiescence to the will of humanity. Evidently,
they were not altogether predictable, even in their quietude.
Blake only pondered this for a moment.
“Mr Peabody”, he spoke at last. “It has been a day of
remarkable events.” The other man nodded, believing the
taciturn coroner to have said his piece. His assumption was
far from correct in this instance. “However, in my experience,
a multiplicity of such remarkable events is never to be taken
lightly. How did you travel here?”
Peabody’s bushy eyebrows shot up at this unexpected tack.
“Why, I came by my carriage, Mr Blake. It occurred to me that
expedience was of the essence.”
“Very well, sir. If I may request your transport this
afternoon, I should quite like to know what Mr Rudd was doing
at the telegraph office today.”
Within the hour, Blake and Peabody were in the main
telegraph office in Newport, a humbler annexe of the much
grander Post Office next door. They had passed a pair of
dishevelled looking street sweepers on the way in, the only
outward sign that their erstwhile colleague had died at this
very spot that morning. They now stood, hats in their hands,
in the administrative office, facing the Postmaster across his
desk.
Postmaster Rogers was a paragon of obstructive Victorian
bureaucracy, and Peabody was in the process of being carefully
obstructed as Blake watched impassively.
“Sirs, as you well know, the Telegraph Service is part of
the Royal Mail, and as such I may not divulge any information
as to the content of any –“
“Yes, yes, of course, Postmaster Rogers!” Peabody’s face was
redder than ever, whether from the cold outside or the mental
strain of maintaining his patience with the bureaucracy of Her
Majesty’s Postal Service. “We are enquiring as to the nature
of the communication, rather than its content!”
“Sirs, I could only divulge such a thing if the
distinguished gentlemen were able to provide a court order to
that effect?” the harassed Postmaster added hopefully.
The men remained stumped, there being no criminal case or
jurisdiction to justify such a request. As yet the
constabulary were unwilling to ascribe any foul play to the
unexplained accident and by the time yet another inquest was
ordered, the Irex proceedings would have been likely long
concluded.
The Postmaster’s office was small, and the two bigger men
crowded in created a claustrophobic presence over Rogers’
desk. Blake leaned forward and held the Postmaster with his
level gaze. “What can you tell us, Mr Rogers?”
The man slumped slightly in deference, and momentarily
decided to reach for a flip-fronted clipboard to one side of
his desk. He adjusted his own glasses and scanned the front
page. “Sir, I can tell you that Mr Rudd came in just after
one-thirty, just as we reopened after lunch. I can confirm
that he sent a communication, that it ran to thirty words, and
that it was sent to an exchange in London. That is all I am
permitted to divulge. I’m sorry, sir”
Blake considered that everyone had been sorry to him today,
with the possible exception of the Lord Chancellor, who had
simply expressed regret. Nevertheless, the information was not
without merit – thirty words was a very long telegram to send
to London, and must have cost Mr Rudd a considerable sum. It
was extremely unlikely to Blake that such a communication was
unrelated to the events of the morning, and he concluded that
Mr Rudd may have been working at cross-purposes to his
inquest. Another thought struck him.
“Has anyone else sent or received a telegram from here this
morning?”
Rogers consulted his clipboard again. “Sir, as it happens,
yes. A gentleman cabled ten words to an exchange in Glasgow at
ten seventeen. North Country accent, I believe.” In this
industrial age, men could be so precise with their timings.
Blake considered that this would be a reasonable time from his
curtailment of proceedings that morning at nine-thirty for a
local newspaperman from Glasgow to make the unwelcome
announcement to his livid employers. Rogers added his final
verdict.
“That was the end of it, save Mr Rudd, God rest his soul;
that was all the traffic of the morning, apart from our
regular customers.”
“Thank you. We are in your debt, Postmaster. We shall not
need to bother you again, unless our inquest into Mr Rudd’s
unfortunate death should require a subpoena of your records.”
He noted the flicker of fear across the Postmaster’s features.
“I assume you keep copies of all correspondence for the
record?” The flicker of fear became more of a persistent
tremble.
Peabody had evidently seen the same twitch. It was he who
pounced first.
“Would you like to consider again if there was another
telegram, Mr Rogers? Perhaps one received?”
“Well, sirs, you did not ask me about –”
“Mr Rogers!”
The Postmaster looked increasingly uncomfortable; lying was
not something to which he was accustomed. He licked his lips
and began to stammer, but Peabody cut him short.
“Are you going to stand before men of character, in the
course of a legal inquiry where people have died, while our
esteemed colleague was killed outside this very office, and
brazen it out? Speak, man!”
Postmaster Rogers looked dazed, and in a thin voice stripped
of its earlier efficient tone, the story came out. “At eleven
sharp, another gentleman cabled thirteen words to London, and
received a reply at eleven twenty-three of twenty words.”
A request, and very probably an answer, or instructions,
surmised Blake.
Peabody twisted the knife. “Mr Rogers, I am duty bound to
tell you that all records kept on Her Majesty’s Service are to
be presented under subpoena within two days. I should be most
disappointed if such records were unavailable.”
Blake had regarded this entire exchange with interest. It
seemed Peabody was more than just a provincial bumbler – a
perceptive mind was evident, if well-hidden, and he could
certainly pull his weight in a fight. Perhaps his verbose
jollity was all part of his act, the very thing that made him
a successful lawyer and magistrate.
The hapless postmaster squirmed uncomfortably, clearly upset
with the line of questioning. “Well, yes, sir, naturally I,
er, would make such records available.”
Peabody lunged in again, his voice triumphant at this turn
in his favour. “Very good, Mr Rogers! Very good indeed! I
should of course make the request through the Postmaster
General’s Office to ensure the closest attention, don’t you
think, man?”
Before he could stammer a reply, Blake fixed him again, and
hissed through clenched teeth. “Who was it, Rogers? Did he
threaten you, or pay you off?” The final shot was fired, and
the Postmaster wilted at last.
“Sirs, I am sorry!” Blake bristled at the sentiment, yet
again. “It was an Officer of the Crown! He ordered me to
destroy the facsimiles of the message and the reply. I swear
this is true!”
“What manner of Crown Officer?” Blake persisted.
“God help me, sir, I don’t know! I know he was a man of
influence, as he bore a commission with the Royal Warrant. If
he told me to keep quiet, I fear I have already betrayed his
confidence!” cried the wretched postman.
Blake pushed harder. He leaned in further, towards the man
who was using his desk as a barrier, his tall frame and long
arms easily spanning the expanse of desk and pressing into the
space occupied by the thoroughly intimidated postmaster, whose
chair was tightly crammed against the wall.
“I need to see Rudd’s telegram, if you haven’t done the
devil’s work with it too? Fetch it immediately.”
The postmaster’s mouth worked wordlessly, as he found
himself crushed between the twin Victorian pillars of
servility and rectitude. He merely nodded, and Blake pushed
himself upright from the desk, the picture of self-possessed
civility again, allowing the shaken postman to sidle round the
desk and squeeze past them through the door.
In the moments they found themselves alone, the chatter of
the teleprinters and the acrid, metallic tang of electrical
equipment impinged on their senses.
It was difficult to imagine a more modern room in the world
than a telegraph office, such was the marvel of sending
messages across the world in a blink of an eye. A letter could
take two weeks to travel from New York to London; a telegram
took mere hours. News in these times was instantaneous by
comparison to previous ages; mankind had never before had such
a wealth and immediacy of information. And yet, its access was
subject to the same bureaucratic controls as the post. It
would do man well to be free of such restrictions if his hold
on the elemental powers of the earth were to increase.
Presently the postmaster returned, clutching an onionskin
copy of the telegram sent by Mr Rudd not three hours ago. His
fear had morphed into a sullen resentment, which he was not
adept at hiding.
“It must not leave this office. You understand, gentlemen? I
have done quite enough already to assist you in this matter.”
Blake and Peabody ignored him, the shorter man craning to
read the script in faint lettering on the facsimile copy.
++URGENT++ DR FOSTER STOP ++ AS EXPCTED INQST NOW IN CLSED
COURT STOP ++ WTNESS STMTS UNEQVCL STOP ++ CONFM CLARENCE RPT
CLARENCE NAMED IN PAPERS STOP ++ BENCH NOT CMPRMISED STOP ++
AM BEING OBSVD STOP ++ RPLY WTH CARE STOP ++ RUDD STOP ++
“It’s not code, but he has tried to cover his tracks in some
way”, mused Peabody. “That reads ‘Witness statements
unequivocal’… Good lord, he’s leaking the details of the case!
‘Clarence’ – wasn’t he one of the passengers? ‘Bench not
compromised’, ‘Am being observed’? What does he mean?”
Blake read the words with a sense of mild alarm, and
committed the words to memory before handing the sheet back to
the Postmaster. “Thank you, Mr Rogers. You have been most
helpful.” They turned to leave, the Postmaster looking
positively stricken. “What shall I do if he returns? Our Crown
Officer?”
This time it was Peabody who leaned in. “You will tell one
of us, young fellow. Send word to us at the courthouse
immediately. And do not tell another soul. Understand?”
The man nodded. Blake looked back into the face of his
colleague, where a new eagerness seemed to glint in eyes, the
very beginnings of a smile turning the corners of his mouth.
The thrill of the chase, thought Blake, and he felt it too. An
understanding had been exchanged between the two men, and they
moved up to the front door, taking extra care to check up and
down the road before stepping out. With a final glance back at
the Postmaster, they turned up the street to retrieve the
magistrate’s carriage.
CHAPTER THREE
Greenock
Tuesday, 10th December 1889
The Irex truly was a modern leviathan. A steel-built, three-
masted, square-rigged ship, with stout masts and yards, and
steel cables for the fixed stays anchoring them, she was
immense and very strong compared to the wooden ships of
yesteryear. More than three hundred feet long, her masts
towered over two hundred feet above the deck. She was more
than twice the size of Hutton’s flying clippers of twenty
years ago, and could carry almost double her own weight in
cargo. Even more impressive than her dimensions, she was built
to be fast. She could carry acres of sail aloft, so that with
a fair wind, in good trim, she could sustain almost 15 knots,
making her faster than any steamer of comparable size,
provided that the wind continued to blow steadily.
Hutton stood near the rail admiring her broad teak deck,
every fixture pristine, new and sturdy. He had to concede that
Clink had ordered a fine ship; moreover, they had not scrimped
on its quality in any way.
It was a shame that they hadn’t made the same investment in
the men selected to sail her. Hutton, as master, had a free
hand in the selection of his crew, though regrettably there
was not an especially encouraging pool of contracted Clink
seamen available. He was pleased to add to his new ship the
services of Andrew Irvine, the first mate, and sailmaker
Colquhoun, both of whom he considered to be hood choices.
The boatswain, or bosun as he was known to all aboard, was
less to his liking – as the senior seaman, the bosun was the
critical member of the crew on a long voyage. As the link
between the officers and the crew, and usually the most
experienced seaman on the ship, the bosun was relied upon to a
greater degree than he was necessarily reliable, and this was
a potential source of tension during a tough voyage. Bosun
Frank Hanson was a gruff man who more than once had tested
Hutton’s patience with his second-guessing and unsolicited
opinions. In addition, he gave off the unmistakeable aura of
the sea-bully – a hard-looking man, short of patience, who
might be a little too quick to use his hands when berating a
seaman. Hutton imagined that handling Hanson would be harder
than the rest of the crew combined.
Hutton moved towards the aft end of the ship, noting the
ever-increasing gusts of wind, and the whitecaps in the
estuary beyond the breakwaters of the Victoria Dock.
Ultimately it was the master’s decision to sail, but he was
keen to keep his schedule, given that other ships were
departing Greenock and Glasgow for the same destination in the
following weeks, and competition was fierce. He would need to
confer with the skipper of the steam tug – if it could not
make way with the six thousand tons of the Irex, they would
not be going anywhere today.
Hutton mounted the stairway at the end of the deck that led
to the raised, stern portion – the quarterdeck. Here was the
ships wheel, binnacle (compass) and barometer, sheltered from
the elements by a crescent-shaped pulpit with a curved roof.
From here the helmsman would direct the wheel under the orders
of the officer of the watch. From this vantage point, with no
sails set, Hutton could see clear up the enormous deck to the
end of the bowsprit, and felt a surge of pride, tinged with
apprehension. Soon, he would take this fine ship out to the
open sea, and sail to Rio de Janeiro, the burgeoning former
Portuguese colony that perched precariously at the foot of
dizzying, jungle-covered mountains, fronted by the
extraordinary rock pinnacle known as Sugar Loaf Mountain.
The cargo was already loaded – it had taken more than two
weeks, Irvine having supervised the final preparations over
the past three days. While not spectacular, it would be
comfortably profitable: 3300 tons of iron drainage pipes and
pig iron to meet the needs of an expanding and vibrant city.
For the men it was undoubtedly one of the better
destinations - rum was plentiful, as were the dusky and
beautiful women; both were also ruinously cheap. Though this
was wildly attractive to the penurious seamen themselves, it
fell as a debit for the captain; cheap rum and cheap women
almost guaranteed that Hutton would lose some of his crew to
their clutches throughout the month or so that they would be
in port.
But such considerations were a world away from the present;
it seemed unlikely that the Irex would be going anywhere as
long as the southwesterly winds continued to gain strength. In
the glass (as the barometer was known), the mercury had
dropped eight points – a precipitous drop in six hours. It was
almost certain that a storm front was approaching; the
question was whether Hutton could gather his crew and reach
open sea before it hit. Hutton was optimistic of his chances,
provided they could run against the Bute Race, a notorious
current that ran strongly between the island of Bute and the
smaller islands of Cumbrae that straddled the Firth of Clyde.
Sailing time had been set for 4 p.m. – or eight bells by the
afternoon watch – and it was already 11.45 as the crew arrived
from their boarding and doss houses in singles and small
groups. Hutton took up office in his room, as the individual
accommodations were called. As captain, he earned this
comfortable space, with table, writing desk, wardrobe and
bunk, and the vital luxury of a private WC and bath. It even
had a proper, square window, though it could not open; this
deficiency was compensated by an opening porthole further
along.
Hutton’s room was in that part of the stern area beneath the
quarterdeck known collectively as the cabin, and shared with
five other smart rooms – another private room for Irvine, the
chief mate; a shared berth for the two other officers; and
three generous staterooms for passengers. The spacious bulk of
the Irex also allowed for a separate chart room, out of bounds
to all but the Captain and the Watch Officers. Within was a
flat, open-topped table for chart work; various meticulously
kept instruments, though senior mariners usually kept their
own; a mass of books, astronomical tables and logs; and the
ship’s voyage log itself, the most important legal record of
the journey to come, and the jealously guarded property of the
Captain himself.
Next to the log was the large loose-leaf pad known as the
slate, wherein the watch officers would record the ship’s
speed, course, position and daily run, in addition to other
pertinent information. This would then be transferred into the
log in permanent ink by Hutton alone, or, in the singular
event of his incapacitation, by Irvine.
Beneath the cabin, accessed directly by a carpeted
staircase, was the saloon deck, an enclosed lounge area for
passengers and officers where they would take their meals. A
separate galley and pantry was provided, with a carpeted
dining area with a long table and bench-style, upholstered
seats. She was no passenger liner, but the Irex nevertheless
was built with some comfort in mind for the senior members of
her crew and the few passengers she would carry.
For the crew there was an altogether different class of
accommodation – room in the forecastle, or fo’c’sle, the first
deck crammed into the bow of the ship, was notoriously lacking
(no shipowner would countenance sacrificing profitable hold
space for mere crew habitation), and their mattresses were
tightly laid side by side on the planked floor. Only the
fortunate few in the cabin had an actual bunk – all the other
crew had to settle for a donkey’s breakfast, so-called because
it was a simple mattress stuffed with straw that could be
easily rolled up. The rough-and-tumble apprentices, a group of
boys who were being prepared for service as officers in the
merchant fleet of the future, usually ensured that at least
one of their number would find his mattress in the sea, used
for fuel, or fed to any livestock that might be carried. The
old salts still favoured that sailor’s staple, the hammock,
though there was ample room for everyone to have a pitch
without resorting to the swinging canvas sacks.
It was because of this dearth of personal space that the men
came aboard simply loaded – apart from the clothes they stood
up in, each had a small crate or sea bag with their sea
mattresses; a few extra clothes, especially socks; foul
weather oilskins and sea boots; a few tools of the trade, most
notably their indispensable knives, and marlinspikes, the
peculiar tool all sailors learned to use for splicing and de-
splicing the hempen lines of rope.
The novices also brought a few precious luxuries from home
or family – tins of meat, pocket-watches or mementoes –
precious items which would soon be lost to foolishness,
thievery, naiveté or the predations of the sea itself. The
first day that the heavily-laden, seventeen-year-old Will
Hutton had stepped aboard the training ship Conway he had
learned this lesson quickly, finding himself quickly divested
of such articles by the salty men whose job it was to make
good officers from the wide-eyed innocents who so
presumptively trespassed on their domain. His angry tears made
good sport for the raucous crew, who enjoyed impunity under
the eyes of the officers, only poor Hutton being yet unaware
of the hardness required to succeed in his chosen profession.
Yet here he was, for the ninth time now preparing to take to
the sea as master, but for the first time with a new ship and
new crew. It was a rare opportunity, and one in which he was
determined to succeed.
First Mate Andrew Irvine arrived aboard at this point – the
mate had been living on the ship for the past week, making
preparations for their voyage. He had retrieved the bills of
lading, signed by the shipping agent, and they now awaited the
captain’s signature to take legal possession of the thousands
of tons of iron in her holds. Hutton marvelled at the quaint
language of the Bill of Lading, unchanged since Elizabethan
days – even then, 300 years ago, men had set sail in their
tiny wooden galleons, braving the seas to bring wealth to
England. Hutton wondered what one of those Elizabethan sailing
masters would have made of the Irex; she may as well have been
constructed by God himself and planted in Greenock by his own
hand. Such was progress; but nothing man had made in any epoch
had any claim to master the sea – Hutton had to beseech the
grace of God as fervently and genuinely as any Tudor seadog.
[Cont.]
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