Scarborough Fair - Chris Scott Wilson [96]
“Oh, will you just look at that,” Jackie murmured.
Scarborough’s headland had swollen to fill the horizon. The castle battlements lined the cliff top, dominating the town which crawled up the hillside from the seashore. To the left was St. Mary’s church with its central tower and the twin dwarf spires at the south end, surrounded by the graveyard. Paradise House stood between the two ancient monuments, its garden a manicured square.
At the foot of the cliff the harbor was crammed with vessels of every size and description, the east pier’s arm thrown protectively around them. At anchor to the south of the west pier, unable to squeeze inside, lay the Baltic convoy that had turned tail and run from Flamborough Head. Locked in the brig when Paul Jones’s squadron had challenged the English escorts, Jackie had not seen the fleet. Now, he gazed at them with awe. They seemed to huddle so close together under the security of the castle battery it was impossible to separate one ship from another, let alone attempt to count them. Masts stood like a forest of winter-naked trees, rigging a complicated mass of spiders’ webs. They looked anxious, bowsprits straining to the land as though to deny their presence in the North Sea.
Jackie’s fascination with the ships faded as he looked again at his hometown. Everything he loved was there. His mother and his friends. And Rose. What else did a man need? In his own boat, with his stomach full and the smell of herrings in his nostrils, already it was as if his adventure had been a dream. The waiting chained in the brig while thunderclaps of gunfire crashed overhead, the interminable hours at the pumps, then the ferrying in the boat before their escape into the clammy fingers of the fog.
Going home. A good warm feeling.
“You see it, Billy?”
“Aye, I see it all right,” his cousin answered. He drank in the panorama. With a sigh, he lay back, eyes closed. The sun warm on his face, Billy knew where he was now. It was all over. He could doze until they moored. He relaxed for a few minutes, listening to the rush of the sea against the hull and the rumbling of the canvas lugsail luffing slightly when Harry changed tack. It was almost too quiet for his ragged nerves.
“Jackie?”
“Aye, what?”
“Sing us a song.”
Harry swung his eyes from the open sea to smile at the two lads and the seaman with the mop of ginger curls. Arm along the length of the tiller, he leaned on it a little so Gin tilted her nose toward the land. He nodded his agreement. “I’ve missed your voice, our Jackie.”
Jackie’s mouth curled in an easy smile, still gazing fondly at his hometown where the waves marched in to dissolve on the beach. He thought of Rose for a moment, comparing her to Dorry in Whitby. He wondered if she would ever be like Dorry, wild and eager, but then he knew there would never be anybody like Dorry for him again. That was a different part of his life, excitement which had brought danger and fear too, the last few days when he did not know what the next hours held. Slavery, prison, or freedom, even death. No, he would always associate Dorry with that, but he would remember her now and again. Rose would have her moments too, he was sure, but more tender…
“Are you going to sing, then?” Harry prompted.
Jackie nodded, already trying to bury the memories. He cleared his throat, soothed by the cold tea. With a smile, he put back his head and opened his mouth, and the words came clear and sweet, carried by the breeze.
“Are you going to Scarborough fair,
Parsley, sage, rosemary,