Ben heard the sound of horses and turned to look back up the hill. A coach pulled by a team of two fine black stallions was approaching fast and taking up most of the road. For a moment he thought about standing his ground and forcing the driver to stop, but only for a moment. One look at the grizzled old man driving the team told him he’d probably just roll right over him. He turned to step off the road, but the coach clipped him and threw him into the muddy ditch and thundered on past.
He started to get up and glared after the coach. If he sprinted, he could catch it at the bend and…what? Jump on it? One whisper from death in a day was enough. He saw the girl leaning out of the coach and forgot all about his anger. The coach careered round the sharp bend in front of the church, and he saw her clearly framed in the window and let his breath out in a low whistle. She was the most breathtaking girl he’d ever seen, and he’d been to the city so knew what was out there. He could’ve walked from one end of Swansea to the other for a year and not seen anyone like her. She was staring back at him in alarm, her mouth forming a perfect O and her pale blonde hair flowing like wind-blown mist. Then she was gone.
Pete climbed down from the low wall where he’d jumped as soon as he’d heard the coach. “You’ll get to know that sound,” he said, looking at the bend in the road. “What sound?” Ben said, without really caring. “The coach. Gareth drives it like that all the time. You get out of the way or you get…” He shrugged and pointed at Ben sitting in the mud. “Who was that?” Ben asked, getting up and trying to brush the mud off his breeches. “I told you, it’s Gareth. He’s a bit mad.” “No, not him. The girl.” Pete blinked twice then shook his head. “Put her from your mind. There goes nothing but trouble.” Ben turned and glared at him. “That,” Pete said, pointing down the hill. “That is Katherine Lucas.” He stopped, as if that ought to be enough, but clearly it wasn’t. “That’s the daughter of John Lucas.” Still nothing. “The pirate.” Ben frowned at him, then looked again at the empty road. “Her father’s a pirate?” “Was.” “Not now? That’s good.” Ben started walking down the hill towards the shore. “Where you going?” Pete pointed up the road. “We were going to the tavern!” Ben waved as he strode quickly away.
Finding the home of John Lucas wasn’t difficult; the first person he asked pointed out Salte House on the rocks below Port Eynon Point. He stopped at the dunes and looked across the beach. The house was a stone-built fortress right on the rugged foreshore, with stout walls all around it and stretching up to the cliffs. It would’ve taken a small army to breach those walls, and be impenetrable for the king’s preventatives in search of smuggled contraband.
Ben saw the black coach approaching the house, much more slowly now it was on the narrow, uneven drive. And he could see the girl silhouetted in the coach window. He started to run. He hadn’t intended to, it just happened all on its own. Over the dunes and across the narrow strip of stony beach, then over the sharp rocks up to the house. He jumped up onto the crushed stone drive and leant over to catch his breath. “You’re the madman who tried to crash my coach.” He looked up sharply and saw her. She was even more lovely now he could see all of her. “Yes. No. It wasn’t me!” She frowned and her pale blue eyes wrinkled. “It was you. I saw you.” She looked him up and down with the hint of a smile. “You’re rather a mess.” Ben looked down at his oversized breeches and frayed and badly stitched open jacket and tried to brush off some of the mud. “It was you.” Her frown deepened. “It was me doing what?”
He looked up and saw her eyes and smiling face, small and elfin. “Have you been drinking?” she asked, and stepped away from him.“No, I have not.” He smiled and his hazel eyes flashed a hint of mischief. “Though I think I might be dreaming.” She sighed heavily and turned to leave the imbecile to his dreaming. “You’re Kate,” he said. With a hint of desperation. She turned back. “No, I’m Katherine.” She tilted her head a little and looked at him steadily, seeing him for the first time. Her age, or perhaps a little older, nineteen perhaps, it was hard to tell under all that mud and sun browning. Not bad looking, for a peasant. Strong, square chin and long ink-black hair. A good face, with lots of laughter lines even at his young age. And his eyes…they… She looked away, suddenly aware of how warm it had become, for December. “Do you walk?” he asked. She watched him for several seconds, then took two long steps to demonstrate her walking prowess. “I mean,” he said, with a slow shake of his head and a wide infectious smile, “do you walk on the beach?” She continued to watch him for a moment, suspicion playing around her eyes. “I walk sometimes.” “Then I’ll walk sometimes too.” He stepped a tiny bit closer. “Would sometimes be tomorrow morning?” She shrugged and he forced himself not to look at her body. “Then I will walk on the beach at ten o’clock tomorrow.” He turned, stopped and looked back. “If you are walking too, then we’ll be walking on the beach together.” She watched him go. And stayed on the road in the stiff easterly winter wind until she felt cool enough to go into the house.
He sat on the dunes and waited, checking his father’s old watch every few minutes. If she wasn’t there in another ten minutes… he sighed. He’d wait, he knew it. He’d waited almost—he checked his watch again—forty minutes. Was any girl worth it? No, not any girl. But Kate was. He smiled. “This doesn’t look like walking.” He turned slowly and looked up at her standing on the dunes behind him, her black cape billowing and her pale hair streaming in the wind. “It’s resting. The walking was exhausting.” “You’ve been sitting there for an hour,” she said, with a slow shake of her head. “You were watching me?” She felt her cheeks redden and walked away, then stopped and looked back. “You said you would walk? Are you incapacitated by drink, again?” “I wasn’t drunk!” He jumped to his feet and strode after her. She was an infuriating person.
“You will have nothing more to do with this peasant,” John Lucas said, and returned to his ledger, as if that was an end to it. “I will see whomever I want to see!” He looked up slowly, his face lined by his hard life on the seas. “This discussion is ended. Go to your room.” “Have you been spying on me?” She stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing with anger. “It appears that someone needs to keep an eye on you.” He shook his head. You’ve been seeing this peasant secretly, and you were seen kissing this…unemployed rogue.” He looked out of the window at the grey stone walls surrounding his fortress. “How do you imagine that looks?” “It looks like what it is!” She was almost shouting, her body shaking with anger. “Love!” And there it was. Her mouth fell open and she took a little step back. He looked back and raised his eyebrows. “Love, you say?” He clicked his teeth. “You are a child, what can you possibly know about love?” “More than you, Father.” She turned and strode to the thick wooden door. “You will go to your Aunt Jane’s.” He picked up his quill and moved his ledger closer. She froze, then turned slowly. “You can’t do that.” “London will do you good,” he said, and made a careful entry. “Rid you of this nonsense.” He looked up. “I have a ship leaving on Monday. You will be on it.” He looked away. The subject was closed. She slammed the door behind her and stood in the dark hallway, tears filling her eyes. She could defy him. But of course she couldn’t. Four days. Four days and she would be exiled to London. And Ben would be three hundred miles away. He would forget about her.
“Kate’s being sent to London,” Ben said, staring into his beer. Pete nodded. “You said.” Ben looked up slowly and shook his head in disbelief. “Why would her father do that?” “Because,” Pete said, “he’s John Lucas, and he owns this village, and every village between here and…” He shrugged. “What makes him think he’s so powerful?” Ben took a long drink. “Because he’s got a dozen hard men working for him. Because he runs the smuggling on the whole peninsula. Because he was a cut-throat pirate. Because he and Robert Skurlege and George Eynon own everything you can see in two days’ hard ride.” He shrugged. “I’ll steal her away.” “Ah!” Pete said, and put his mug down heavily. “You try that and you’ll be floating with the fishes.” He shook his head. “It’s over, Ben.” He shrugged again.
Ben drank more beer and looked around at the empty tavern. Then he had an idea. It just popped into his head and he looked up sharply. “I’ll go to London.” Pete took a long breath and sighed. “And how are you going to pay for the trip? I don’t know about a big town like Carmarthen, but here your wages for crewing that wreck of a fishing boat wouldn’t get you to Swansea.” Ben licked his lips and looked around again, as if the answer might be right there. And it was. “You!” Pete waved his hands. “I don’t have that much money.” “No. I mean you did have. You were rich in the summer. How did you do that? I’ll do it, and then I’ll go to London.” Pete raised his hands. “No, Ben, that’s not going to work.” “Why? What did you do that I can’t do if I want to do it to do…” He shook his head, but the beer was doing its job.
Pete closed his eyes and tried to think of a way out, but there wasn’t one. He could lie. He could tell his friend that his old uncle left him money. He could plead with him not to pursue it. But the boy was lost. Kate was everything to him. And anyway, he’d not lie to his friend. He took a long breath and told him. Ben sat with his mouth open, staring at him with wide eyes, then he blinked slowly and blew out his breath. “Wrecking?” Pete waved him silent. “For God’s sake! Keep your voice down.” He looked around the tavern. It was still empty, but at eleven in the morning on a workday, it would be. Ben looked around too, then leaned over the scrubbed wood table. “Where? When?” Pete took a long drink of beer to give him strength. “Here, on Rhossili.” He looked around again. “Spanish.” Ben licked his lips. “That was you? The ship with tons of silver coin?” He shook his head in amazement. “Yes, well, no. Well, not just me. It was…” He caught himself. “Local men who do this kind of thing.” Ben nodded. “But seamen died.” “Yes, they did. It’s the government’s fault.” Ben looked puzzled. “How can it be the government’s fault?” “They passed a law that says if there’s even one soul left on a ship, then it isn’t salvage.” He shrugged. “So there’s never anybody left.” Ben thought about it, then shook his head. “No, I couldn’t do that. Not kill people for money.” “Don’t have to now,” Pete said quietly. “Mr Lu—the local leader has men on the ships who make sure everybody gets into the longboats before the ship founders.” Ben’s eyes lit up. “Can we do it? You and me?” He looked around. “Do you know men on ships?” He began to hope. Pete brushed dust off his new coat. “I could do.” “Then that’s what we’ll do.” “Wait a minute!” “No, no minutes to waste.” Ben stood up, then sat down quickly and pulled a face. He pushed his beer away and stood up slowly. “Come on!”
James Teale walked with them off Swansea dock as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and stopped outside a tavern that was overflowing with drunken sailors spending their wages and women helping them. “I needs the money, you see, or I’d not countenance the deed.” Ben had no idea what the man was saying, but got the feeling he was saying yes. “Then you’ll do it?” he asked. “Aye, but not for the pittance I gets from Lucas. I wants a third of whatever you gets ashore.” Ben leaned closer to Pete. “Will we get enough to pay for my trip?” “What’s she carrying?” Pete asked. “Rum, silk, and tea,” Teale said. Pete nodded at Ben. “Even a third will get you to London and keep you fed for a year.” “Nobody dies!” Ben said. Teale shook his head. “I’m first mate on the King Charles. Nobody drowns with me running things.” “Then we’ll do it,” Ben said, and tried to hide his shaking voice. His future now had a glimmer of hope in the dark despair. Teale spat on his hand and put it out. “Shake on it.” There was no going back now.
Sunday was the longest day Ben had ever known. He checked his old watch constantly, but it didn’t seem to be moving. He wanted to go to the tavern to pass the time, and to silence the voice in his head telling him to run away from the daft plan. Kate was going to London, forever. This was his chance, his only chance to follow her. The thought of being without her forever made his head spin. So he waited. He sat at his tiny window in the tiny room he rented from the mad old woman, and waited. At ten o’clock Pete arrived. He waved him down to the dark yard and they walked slowly to the beach without speaking. There was nothing to say; they both knew what they were about to do. They bowed their heads against the icy wind that howled around them, and made their way along the rocks between the Lucas fortress and the rising tide. It took them over an hour to collect enough driftwood to build the fire that was to be the beacon. Then they found a fissure in the razor-sharp rocks and huddled down to wait for midnight. And the King Charles.
Eventually Pete patted Ben on the shoulder and they climbed back up into the growing storm. Pete pulled a tight roll of hay from beneath his tunic, pushed it under the driftwood pile and handed a brown bottle to Ben. He pulled the cork and sniffed it. “Brandy?” “Not for drinking,” Pete shouted as he crouched and pulled out his flint and steel. “Pour it on the hay and I’ll light it, but be quick or it’ll be gone in this wind.” A moment later blue flames jumped up around the wood, turned orange and red, and became a beacon. They stepped away from it and stared into the storm.
As the King Charles passed Oxwich Point and turned south, James Teale stepped out onto the pitching deck and studied the coast ahead. He saw the beacon, nodded and strode up to the helmsman and ordered him to stay close to the light to avoid the sandbanks. Then he waited. The ship corkscrewed and ploughed into the wild sea and the helmsman fought to keep her bow pointing at the beacon. Teale held onto the rail above the main deck and waited. Five more minutes and he would give the order to abandon ship. Almost there. Wait. He turned and took a breath. The ship struck the rocks and he pitched backwards over the rail onto the deck below. Driven by a huge wave, the ship rose high above the rocks like a stricken beast rearing from an awful death; then the sea drove it down to smash itself to pieces with a near-human scream of agony.
Ben saw the ship founder on the Point. Saw the sails still full as the masts crashed down onto her, smashing her decks and spilling her cargo into the raging sea. He couldn’t breathe. The wind tore his breath away and the horror of what he was doing gripped his heart like Satan’s fist. Nobody would drown. That’s what the first mate had said. They’d be in the longboats. Pete hit him on the shoulder and they ran and staggered to the pounding surf. Casks of brandy were already rolling ashore, some smashing to splinters on the rocks, but others rolling intact within reach. They pulled them away from the waves before they could be reclaimed by the storm. And with every one saved, Ben’s hopes for a new life in London rose. He found he was grinning as he pulled a chest onto the shore. Perhaps this would keep him long enough to marry his love and build a new life. Or this cask. Or this roll of lace. Just ten feet from the cliffs he saw two more casks floating together, as if waiting for him. This was the last of it. When this was done, they would be rich. He slid off the shore and waded into the furious sea, fighting to keep his balance on the slippery rocks. Something popped up in front of the barrels and he reached forward and pulled it towards him. It was a roll of black fabric. He would salvage that first, throw it to the shore and then grab the casks.
The fabric spread in the surf, black and billowing. His heart slammed in his chest and he prayed it was just the lightning cracking above his head that made it look like a cape. He pulled the bundle closer and rolled it over. Kate’s blonde hair flowed into the white surf and her sightless eyes stared up at him, pleading to know why. He cried out and jumped back, then scrambled forward to reach her again. A wave crashed into his chest and staggered him. He caught his balance and turned. But she was gone. He called her name and raised his hands to Heaven, but his cries were whipped away by the howling wind. He desperately searched the waves. Then lowered his arms and walked forward into the boiling surf.
Legend has it that every year at the exact moment of the winter solstice, a tortured soul returns to Port Eynon Point to cry out to his love across the unforgiving sea. But though he is doomed to call her name for a thousand years, she will never answer.
Author: Leigh Barker Pen & Ink illustrations: Ellie John