Gower, 1852

John slings his canvas bag over one shoulder, fear freezing his guts as he stands facing Da across the table. ‘I’ve been hired as a deckhand on a ship. Be gone a few weeks.’

In the gloom of their cottage, his hunched, dark-browed father glowers with fury, while his four younger brothers gape like sparrows over their porridge bowls. 

‘You’ll do no such thing. Your place is working with me an yer older brothers for Penrice estate, see.’

John ducks for the door before Da can get round the table, pauses to hug his startled Mam, then splashes down the muddy lane to catch the farm cart to Swansea market. His heart catches in his throat as he tumbles in the back amid sacks of vegetables. He pulls his bony knees close to his chin, scrunches his hands through his springy, sandy hair, and squeezes his eyes shut, imagining cresting waves on the Bristol Channel.

The deck lurches under John’s feet and he near loses his balance as Angharad exits Swansea dock and heels hard over in the sea breeze. Two hours since he stepped on board from the steady ground of the quayside. That time flew by in a flurry of harsh instructions, to haul halyards, make them fast and coil up rope. 

Stocky, red-faced, weathered Second Mate Ellis emerges from the fore-hatch and gestures at John and apprentice Rees, grunting. ‘You two lads, up onto the yard and let out the mainsail. Sharpish, now.’

Rees, an angular, wiry boy two inches taller, climbs up the rough rope ladder strung against the mainmast. As John follows, fibres spike his hands, and his boots slip on wet rungs. He hauls himself onto the smooth wooden yard, copying the way Rees leans on his stomach while sliding his boots along a taut rope strung below. Glances down at the heaving deck twenty feet below and wishes he hadn’t. Rees, out on the port end of the yard, unpicks the ties securing the mainsail, and John slides to the starboard end to release his ties, allowing acres of creamy canvas to tumble down. At last John can look up. He is stunned by the seagull’s eye view of Swansea, terraced houses stacked on the hill side, port crammed with masts and sails, copper smelter smoke swirling up the Tawe valley. 

Rees grins across at him, nose wrinkling, dark brown eyes squinting. ‘First time at sea, then?’

‘Yes, finished school this summer. Da pushed me into farm work, but I always wanted to go to sea. How long you been sailing?’

‘A year. Proper sea dog compared to you. My family saved for an apprenticeship.’

John stays quiet. Apprentices pay forty pounds upfront for seven years of seamanship training on board ship. Beyond reach for a farm labourer’s son. He must earn his place by sweat and graft. The breeze bellies the mainsail and the boys slither back along the yard, scrambling down precarious ratlines to the deck.

Angharad pitches past Mumbles lighthouse, heading west. John glimpses the yellow crescent of Oxwich beach and rocky finger of Oxwich Point, home turf for all his thirteen years, distorted and unfamiliar seen from seaward. From that grassy cliff, while urging reluctant cows to milking, he’d watch in envy as ships sailed past. Now here he is on board a ship, riding the rolling waves to France. First time away from home and family. He inhales a deep lungful of salty air and rubs his damp eyes with a grubby fist.

As he lets his hand drop, Ellis is pointing straight at him, grumbling to an able seaman. ‘Stupid farm boy, no bloody use at sea.’ The gnarled Second Mate smirks at being overheard and raises his voice. ‘Off you go, now, farm boy. Scrub the anchor chain clean.’ 

In the dark pit under the ship’s bow, John attacks the coiled heap of anchor chain with a brush and rinses it with a bucket of seawater. The stench of rotting weed and filthy mud, and lurching rhythm of the ship churns up his stomach so bad he struggles not to empty it into the bucket.

After a hasty meal, he snatches a few hours kip in a swaying hammock deep in the gloomy forecastle, before being shaken awake for his night watch. Up on deck, cold pierces deep into his chest. He gapes in wonder at the array of luminous stars, brighter even than those seen from Gower cliff-tops. A thousand lights suspended in the heavens, blotted out by solid dark oblongs and triangles of sails, dancing in rhythm with the ship. On lookout duty, scanning the horizon for other vessels, he is mesmerised by swirling, oily black waves below. A weird and outlandish world, that triggers a pleasant shiver deep in his gut. By watch end, fingers and toes blocks of ice, he dives into his hammock fully clothed, hands tucked in armpits for warmth, to dream of stars floating and bobbing on the sea.

 

Next morning John is staring, captivated, as Angharad dips and dives past rocky Cornish headlands and splashy harbours, when the helmsman hollers, ‘Ready to gybe.’ 

In seconds, the deck is a flurry of arms reaching to tighten sails and guide Angharad’s stern through the wind. John hesitates, unsure where to run.

‘You, boy, ease the mizzen sheet,’ yells Ellis, propelling John forward with a rough hand between his shoulders. He stumbles, trips, recovers and strides to the enormous wooden block to haul in the rope. But precious seconds are lost, and the boom builds momentum as it swings overhead. John attempts to let out the heavy sheet, but the rope is powered up and snatches from his grip. The boom smashes against the shrouds, and the ship lurches towards the leeward waves.

‘Idiot. We need seamen on this ship, not useless farm boys.’ 

Ellis strikes John’s head with such force he crashes flat on deck. Scrunched up in a ball, right ear humming with pain, he crawls away to escape the Second Mate’s sightline. 

‘Who screwed up that gybe?’ A clear voice rings out as Lewis, the ship’s Master, emerges from the aft hatch. The reply from Ellis is blotted out by rattling untrimmed sails as Angharad recovers her course. John huddles on the foredeck, anger and pain mixed with despair. His only chance to go to sea. Mess this up and he’ll be condemned to life as a farmhand. He shudders at the prospect of toiling in muddy fields, trapped with the same view for ever.

That evening Ellis despatches John to scrub burned cooking pots, rubbing his hands raw. Next morning Ellis orders him to empty slop buckets over the side, rinsing them out with icy sea water till his fingers sting with cold and he struggles to untie the knots to release them. Deliberate punishment by the Second Mate, who makes no secret of his belief farm labourers have no place at sea. But speaking up will only make it worse.

As Angharad forges east, a hoary able seaman with a stoop and twisted fingers asks John to tidy a spare sail at the bow. A chance to avoid Ellis’ malevolent gaze. He scrambles into a hammock of coarse rope netting under the bowsprit to fold canvas into neat slabs, and gapes in wonder at the clouds ahead, marching in orderly ranks towards the horizon. The sun looks larger and brighter than on land, setting both clouds and breaking waves on fire as it sinks lower. John is hypnotised by the endless expanse of sea and sky, the ship so small and he a mere speck. 

 

In Dunkirk’s inner harbour, Angharad nestles alongside other merchant ships, gunwales rubbing and creaking in sloshing, oily waters. John and Rees are sent aloft to check rigging and sails. Beyond the breakwater and graceful stone lighthouse, rounded sandbanks break the surface. The town is a maze of narrow streets, elongated houses and steep roofs, pierced by a church spire. Smoky black clouds rise from the railway, while iron wheels shriek on rails. 

Jean-Jacques, the cook, calls up, ‘Clement, viens ici quand tu as fini. Il faut aller au marche.’ His meaning is clear despite the strange words. John wheels a wooden barrow over cobbled streets to the market, following the cook. Stalls are piled high with cuts of fresh meat, salted pork, and contorted cured sausages, vast yellow rounds of pungent cheese, piles of red tomatoes and bulbous orange squashes. Bakers build tottering towers of dark loaves. John dodges piles of stinking fish-guts on the cobbles, while sausages, cheese, dark bread and smoked fish rain down into his barrow.  

While John stows the provisions on board, Jean-Jacques lights the galley fire, conjuring up a rich fish stew, yellow as gorse, black mussel shells floating askew. Sailors slurp peppery broth from bowls, mopping up with heels of dark bread. John lurks in the shadows to avoid a glowering Ellis. He eavesdrops as the crew question Prothero, a wiry able seaman, with unkempt black hair and a haunted look in pale grey eyes, not long returned from Cape Horn. 

‘What’s it like, then, down at the bottom of the world?’  

Prothero draws a long breath, staring into his stew, before answering. ‘Wild old place, it is. Can lose your sense of time and fear you’ll never escape it. Like the sea is doing its best to kill you, see.’ He shivers and slurps a hot spoonful, eyes glazed on a distant point.

After eating, the crew disperse to drink in port, while John and Rees are confined on board. John lies in the half-dark, haunted by visions of storms whistling around a craggy headland while a ship beats its hopeless way westwards. Hours later, he is woken by men stumbling back in pitch black, swearing as they trip over sea chests, before colliding with their berths, to snore till dawn.

 

Angharad is mid-Channel and John is coiling rope when Ellis sidles up and tweaks his sore ear. ‘Sheet’s loose on the main topsail. Go aloft and tie it back, farm boy. Now.’

His ear smarts with pain but there is no point arguing. He gathers a rope into a figure of eight, to tie onto his belt. Stares up at the topsail, its lower corner flogging. Choked with terror, he climbs the ratlines, moving only one hand or foot at a time, adjusting to the pitch and roll of the ship, wary of missing a step and crashing down. As he gains height, the deck shrinks and angry waves surround the ship. He throws a hasty glance forward at an ominous charcoal grey sky. Once on the main lower yard, he straddles the wooden beam, concentrating on the flapping topsail. 

John grabs the lower edge of the canvas and works methodically to its errant corner as he wriggles along the yard. Extracts one free end from his rope bundle and secures it to the sail with a bowline knot, as Rees had shown him. He lets out slack then, hands shaking with nerves, scoots backwards along the yard until one boot hits the ratlines. Hooks a grateful elbow over a convenient rope, and descends, keeping that topsail sheet slack. Six foot now left to the deck, but his rope is too short. His stomach chills. Must he climb up again?

A hand grabs his ankle, and an able seaman passes up a tail of rope. He seizes it and ties a hasty reef knot onto the loose end. As his boots land with a thud on deck, the rain arrives. The wind gusts and Angharad accelerates. John secures the rope end on the nearest deck cleat. Cold hard pellets of rain attack the ship and crew, flooding the deck and running out the scuppers. Angharad kicks like an irritated cart horse, plunging her bow deep into the waves, before rearing back, sea water washing stem to stern. 

‘Take down that foresail,’ orders Ellis. Seamen surge forward to manhandle whipping sheets. John struggles to keep his footing on the slippery deck, handholds jumping out of reach, as he inches forward on the bucking ship. Crew grab handfuls of wayward, soaking sail, and shove it below through an open hatch. An endless maelstrom of wet arm, wet hands and wet canvas, till all is dragged down. A dull pain hammers John’s head and a sharp churning mangles his gut. No, he must not be sick. But nausea floods through him, and he empties his miserable stomach over the leeward quarter. Spitting and retching, acid bile in his mouth, he crawls to the cockpit, funnelling cold rain with shaking hands to rinse his face.

A sharp gust whips and snatches at the topsail. His hasty reef knot slips apart, and the sail flogs out of control. A heavy blow cracks against his head, and he crashes onto the soaking deck. A kick bruises his ribs as Ellis growls at him. ‘Useless lad. Go below now and fold and stow that foresail. Master will deal with you later.’

The motion below deck is many times worse than above. John takes a deep breath as if diving underwater and drags himself forward handhold by handhold to the pitching forecastle, where the foresail lies in a sodden, mangled pile below the hatch. He grabs a corner and, arms outstretched, starts to fold the sail in a zigzag, smoothing the canvas, summoning all his willpower to avoid vomiting again. He folds the pleated sail in two, ties it up and heaves it onto a wooden shelf. Nauseous and spent, he crashes into the nearest leeward bunk and curls into a tight ball. The outside world is shaking itself to pieces. Like being rolled in a barrel down a cliff. No chance of sleeping through this.

Light pokes through cracks in the deck. He must have slept after all. That infernal motion has eased, to a more normal rhythm. Time to roll out of his bunk and report to the Master for his punishment. As his feet hit the planks, Rees hisses in his ear. ‘Bloody bully. He sent you to stow that sail on purpose. Don’t let him get to you.’  

Grateful for an ally, John clasps the other boy’s arm tight before inching aft to the Master’s cabin. 

Lewis glowers behind the chart table, brow furrowed, arms folded. ‘Agent swore you were a bright lad, strong and keen. But Ellis says you are careless and sloppy, not cut out for the sea. Listen to me and remember. Haul in the sheet before a gybe. Before going aloft, check the rope is long enough for your purpose. And never tie sheets with a reef knot. You understand?’

John’s guts clench, his throat too dry to speak. He croaks, ‘Yes, sir.’

Lewis exhales through his teeth, impatient. ‘You must prove yourself, now, Clement, if you want to sail with us again.’

A rising panic. All he wants in life is to go to sea. Now it is about to slip his grasp, like that wretched topsail. ‘Yes, I do want to, sir, more than anything.’

Lewis pauses and his dark eyes rake over John’s face for several long seconds, as if he sees a defiant flame flickering inside this scruffy lad. ‘Right, then, better make yourself useful as we approach Plymouth.’ He points at the chart. ‘Here’s the safe channel, between the rocks. We must keep the east breakwater bearing between north-north-west and north by west. Can you read a compass?’

John nods, eyes wide. Lewis tosses a small hand compass on a leather thong onto the chart. ‘Go on watch and sing out if we stray outside that range. Get it wrong and you could hole us on a rock. Get it right, and I may let you stay.’

John leans forward to grab the compass. A lifeline.