Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [129]
Beth exchanged an amused grin with Jack. Theo thought he could pay someone to do anything he found disagreeable.
‘Most of them are jumping ship too,’ Jack said. ‘I think we can safely say it will be every man for himself from now on.’
Once again Jack’s information was correct, for when they heard the sound of anchor chains creaking, and the splash as the anchor hit the water, dry land was still a mile away.
‘We surely aren’t expected to swim ashore!’ one alarmed, overweight matron exclaimed.
There were a few scows from other ships ferrying people and equipment to land, but it would take weeks for everyone to disembark that way. The crew were already shouting out that this was a tidal flat, and if people didn’t look sharp and make their way to the beach, they’d lose their goods and maybe drown too.
Unceremoniously the terrified horses and other animals were pushed into the sea to swim ashore, and at that people began to follow, jumping into the water.
Jack put Beth’s coat, boots and shawl into an oilskin bag, and led her down the ship’s ladder. The water was so icy it took her breath away for a moment, but Jack put his arms around her chest, urging her to hold the bag up to keep it dry, and swam on his back with her the few yards until she could touch bottom and wade ashore.
‘This is not a good start,’ she said between chattering teeth.
‘The sun’s warm, you’ll soon dry out,’ Jack said cheerfully. ‘You make your way to the beach and keep a place for our stuff. I’m going back to the ship.’
Once Beth reached dry land, she surveyed the scene before her with trepidation. Skagway was just a huddle of shacks and tents on marshland which was already a slick of black mud. All around were mountains, some still snowcapped, but even more daunting was the desperate scene behind her in the sea.
At least thirty boats lay at anchor, all trying to discharge their passengers and freight at once. The sea was studded with horses, goats, dogs, mules and oxen swimming to the shore, and their owners racing to keep up with them.
The noise was deafening. Men who owned the dozens of scows and primitive rafts were touting for business by shouting at the tops of their voices. People on the boats yelled back even more stridently. If goods dropped from ships missed their mark and fell into the sea, the owners cursed and swore. Animals expressed their fear by whinnying or barking. There were screams for help from those floundering in the icy water. Some bags of goods had split wide open, and Beth saw a sack of flour whiten the sea around it.
Someone shouted that the tide was turning and everyone should hurry. Fear for the boys made her wet clothes seem suddenly unimportant. Sam couldn’t swim, maybe Theo couldn’t either, and the Albany was too far away to spot them on the deck.
Slipping off her petticoats, she secured them with pebbles to dry in the wind, then put her boots back on. She thought she would leave her coat until her dress was dry.
Her anxiety continued to rise as the tide crept further in and she saw more people floundering in the sea and yet more sacks of goods splitting, their contents running out into the water. Her dress was nearly dry now, so she must have been waiting for nearly an hour. But she could see no sign of the boys anywhere.
Just as she was on the verge of panic she suddenly spotted Jack standing up in shallow water. He was hauling in what looked like a string of big black sausages.
Not for the first time since they left Montreal she was staggered by his ingenuity, for he’d tied all their oilskin sacks on to a rope. When she looked again she saw Sam clinging on to one of the sacks, and Theo was bringing up the rear.
‘Wish we’d never come, Beth?’ Jack asked later that evening.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘But it’s all a bit scary, nothing like we imagined.’
It was eight in the evening. Swarms of men who were little more than thugs out to rob the naive had descended on them, trying to get them to pay for a space to erect their tent, for wood for a fire, and countless other things.
The boys had stood