part of the southern Devon coast. A trip that has taken him from one country to another, across mountains, plains and rivers, a multitude of dialects passing like languages as he progressed by coach, horse and on foot. Yet this distance is as nothing compared to that he is assigned to undertake once he steps on to the Anne’s deck.
As he approaches the vessel for the first time he pauses briefly to study the activity all around him at the quayside; the loading of cargo into the timber holds – bales of linen, cases of carbines, brass pans and carpets, barrels of spirit, firkins of gunpowder, spare sails and rope, lots of rope. Nothing moves without the application of strenuous labour by men on and off the ship. Nothing seems to move without being noted by the men with pens and notebooks. There is a strange sourness in his mouth for a moment as he realizes that those who do not sweat are undoubtedly the ones who are making the money here. Who were they? The officiators, the clerks, all the king’s men; the supercargoes – agents of the merchants who had funded the voyage – the tax inspectors, the captain’s mate. He noticed that they managed somehow to maintain composure and concentration amidst the distractions all around; the screeching and bawling of the traders pitching their goods to the departing ship’s crew, the barking of stray dogs sniffing excitedly at the tubs of lard and tallow about to be loaded. All ignored, eyes fixed instead on the glimmer of silver that the boat represents.
He let his own gaze linger on the freight still on land. Which goods would be traded with the savages on the Guinea coast, he wondered, and which would make it all the way to the table of some rich colonist’s plantation mansion in Jamaica? This was only a passing concern to him though, something to occupy his mind other than the growing disquiet he felt when studying the vessel itself, all creaking timbers and spindly masts. So this was the craft that would take them to the edge of the world? She seemed barely able to hold water amongst the gentle lapping tide at Plymouth dock; what chance would she stand in the wilderness of the oceans, how would she cope with the malevolent mountains of waves that lay waiting for her there? He had once persuaded himself that he was happy to let fate decide his path for him – looking at the worm-ridden hull of the Anne he wondered if he was giving it the chance to make his path lead him anywhere other than the bottom of the sea.
As he moved nearer the gangplank the cacophony around grew ever more shrill in its urgency. Here the agents and tariff men counted aloud and traded insults as well as the goods they sought to barter. Here the merchants yelled their demands for payment. Small children, hands and faces blackened by exposure to the hot tar being painted on the ship’s bow, darted in between the departing crates, pilfering fingers eager for any spillage that might fetch a coin at the paupers’ market. Incessant noise, incessant demands, incessant questions, unrelenting squalor. Yes, the sea might make for a desperate gamble but it could also mean freedom, the one escape left open for men like him. Even a craft as unkempt and graceless as the Anne could be a transport of beauty capable of taking him to a heaven away from this hell. Only a few more steps to endure as he picked his way through the last casual traps of trip-ropes, splintered wood and excrement that marked the very end of England’s shore. He gripped the varnished rail of the Anne’s deck and hauled himself aboard. He did not look back, even though the premonition that he would never live to see it again grew all the heavier as he cleared the land in that final stride.
It was the captain who came to see him, announcing his presence outside the cabin with a hearty cough and gurgling of phlegm. A hand knocked loudly on the door.
‘Are you there, sir?’
‘Here, aye.’
The door opened and an almost ashen, pock-marked face confronted him. He put his book down to the floor and swung his legs free from the hammock.
‘Martin Law, sir, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Thank you for accepting me aboard.’
‘Doctor Law, yes?’
The uncertain smile which greeted the remark verged upon the bashful. ‘Aye … and you are Captain Henry?’
‘Correct.’
A silence then hung between them. Evidently the captain expected the new arrival to lead in conversational matters, perhaps at this stage offering some presentation of credentials as to his suitability for the voyage. The younger man declined to do so, for surely his initial letters and the acceptance he had received in return correspondence had completed such formalities beforehand.
‘How long until we set sail?’
The captain took off his hat and scratched at his shaven head, black fingernails clawing at the silvery stubble as if being filed upon a piece of flint.
‘Some time after even tide. There is much still to be loaded and properly stored below deck. It may be that we cast off before the latter is complete and we bind the cargo down once we are under way. We might make back some time, aye, if the sea is calm … Still, we cannot leave of course until the damned tariff-keepers have had their fill.’
There was another quiet as the captain contemplated the blight of inspectors that assailed his ship, leaving the other to study his complexion. How old had he been when the smallpox struck? To leave scars like that it must have been severe, life-threatening. Did it ever recur? The medical journals spoke of fevers that would erupt amongst some men in the heat of the Africas; were these new diseases or old ones rekindled from deep inside? He would have to seek out what the books had to report. The captain moved to bring his mind back to practical matters.
‘I take it you have arrangements in place to bring your personal cargo aboard?’
‘I have no cargo as such, sir, only a few volumes of writing to assist in my work. These should be at the quayside shortly.’
‘No cargo? No personal venture? As ship’s surgeon an allowance has been made for you in the stern hold. I would rather you kept this cabin clear of possessions, there will be seven or so using it once we are under sail. Please have your books directed to the holds.’
He knew that the captain’s bafflement was understandable. The wages for voyages like this were pitifully poor, the only worthwhile consolation for those privileged enough to receive it was the opportunity to speculate on their own efforts to trade during the course of the trip. Senior crew-members such as the captain could expect to multiply their earnings tenfold by such means and the tonnage allowances permitted to each were eagerly sought and guarded.
He watched the captain move to the door before halting.
‘So … Doctor … If you are not taking up your due I take it you would have no objection to others doing so?’
‘On my behalf?’
Another silence, another scratch of the scalp. ‘On the ship’s behalf, sir.’
‘Of course.’
The captain smiled. His first smile. It lasted but an instant. ‘Then I should bid good day to you, Doctor. I have work to do.’
From Glasgow to the south of France, summer of 1985. My first summer after starting university, four of us – myself, Paul, Ian and Maurice, all Strathclyde first years – living in two tents at a campsite a mile or so inland from St Raphaël, the heart of the Côte d’Azur. The excursion and its location was my idea, as was the stop-off en route in Paris to visit the grave of Jim Morrison. Not that we thought the stiff Lizard King would appreciate our visit, it just seemed appropriate to pay tribute to someone whom we, laughably, thought to be a kindred spirit. Jim Morrison had lived and died the full rock-and-roll trip, for him there was nothing that was forbidden, nothing that he denied himself. He had tested the parameters
