Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) by Helen Hollick Read Free Book Online Page B

to the Taw and Torridge estuary were not favourable to shipping. The hazardous difficulties in negotiating the Bar were well known to West Country seamen. Even on calm, windless days the waters churned uneasily, while in rough weather the breakers raged in a fury of white foam.
    Ships found it hard to beat in and harder to beat out of the estuary. To do so with a modicum of safety, daylight was imperative. Negotiating the Bar at night in a tide running at six knots was a fool’s game for the ebb was a mere three fathoms deep, rising to six on the flood. Equally, to attempt anything without a pilot was madness. Jesamiah, however, was hesitant of hoisting a signal flag and dropping anchor. The tide was in flood with about half an hour or so to meet its height, the wind was right; were he to wait, by the time a pilot came aboard both would have changed. Not to wait could wreck his ship and drown everyone. How would that help Tiola? He had to get her ashore, though, and she had flatly refused to be taken in the longboat – a reaction that had scared him more than any symptom of her malaise. Tiola did not panic. This abject fear of hers was frightening him.
    “Permission to come on the quarterdeck?” Henry Jennings was part way up the ladder, head cocked to one side, following etiquette to the letter. The quarterdeck was the holy of holies aboard ship, only those about their business or with the captain’s permission stepped on to its decking.
    At the helm, Jesamiah sniffed, squinted a moment at a slight shiver along the edge of the foremast sail. “This ain’t no Navy frigate, Henry. We don’t stand on daft rules and regulations here.”
    Gesturing a salute, Jennings scrambled up the rest of the ladder with a degree of difficulty, failing to mask the throb of pain in his foot. “Maybe not, but I have never been one to assume or push my weight about.”
    Jesamiah put the helm down half a point, his firm hands gentling his ship back to where he wanted her. “Is that so?”
    Jennings grinned as he went to the binnacle box to check the compass heading. “Well, not that often. You want to bring her up a point.”
    Waiting a full half-minute, Jesamiah also glanced at the compass, then complied.
    “Rue said something about fetching the pilot?”
    “Did he, Henry?”
    “He did. You’ve no need for a pilot. I know these waters.”
    The wind was whipping Jesamiah’s hair about his face, the blue ribbons he customarily wore tied into it stinging his skin like needle pricks. He looked at the man sceptically. “You do, eh?”
    “I do.”
    A long pause while Jesamiah doubtfully considered the implications. “How well is well?”
    “Well enough to get us to harbour in one piece, and a damn sight quicker than waiting for that pilot.” Jennings patted Jesamiah’s shoulder and grinned. “Son, I was sailing these waters when I was knee-high to a foremast jack. I did a fair bit of smuggling in my youth – and even more with your father. You’ll not find the Gentlemen of the Trade waiting for a pilot!”
    The doubt lingered. The thought that his father had often been in these waters was unsettling Jesamiah slightly. “I don’t know, Henry.”
    “Trust me. I’m no more interested in drowning than are you.”
    Growling something that vaguely sounded like, “I don’t trust anyone who says trust me,” Jesamiah graciously stepped away from the wheel. If they were to end up aground on the Bar… but it was obvious that, for whatever reason of his own, Henry Jennings was also eager to make landfall. Jesamiah shrugged and walked away to lean on the rail. Henry’s business was not his business.
    With Jennings at the wheel and all sails clewed up, except topsails and jib, the Sea Witch slid as meek as a lamb towards the Bar. Jesamiah peering over the side, pretending not to be anxious about the churn of foam beneath her keel, the swell, the strength of the current, and that he was not listening intently to Isiah Roberts,