Read Ebook: Contraband: A Tale of Modern Smugglers by Spencer Erle

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Ebook has 907 lines and 37191 words, and 19 pages

"What's that?" demanded Martha, who was sharp of hearing.

"I was saying I hoped the cap'n was well and hearty," stated Ben mendaciously.

"Well, you can keep on hoping," returned Martha. "Your father is kept to the house, Mr. Derek," she explained. "He hurt his leg the other day, and can't use it very well yet. That's why he's not come to meet you."

Dare was concerned to hear this and said so.

"It's nothing serious," Martha hastened to assure him, and turned on Ben.

"Now then, Ben Saleby, pick up the baggage and don't keep us waiting here all night. This way, Mr. Derek," she directed, and the trio took the turning leading to the Customs House, where Captain Stanley was lodged.

They spoke little on the way. Martha was moody and out of sorts, and at that hour none of them had much relish for gossip. As they halted before a high-roofed building with lights showing below and above, Martha spoke, however.

"I might as well tell you both," she said brusquely, "that the captain got his bad leg from the smugglers."

Ben and Dare took this surprising information in different ways. Dare was speechless, but Ben, ever ready to fill such a breach, voiced several full-blooded oaths. Martha turned on him like a virago.

"Less of that, Ben Saleby, or I'll lay this lantern about your head. Yes, Mr. Derek, it's so. They set upon him two days ago when he was gallivanting goodness knows where. He's got a arm broke, too," she admitted.

Dare found speech at this. He knew Martha would make light of the affair, and he felt certain that his father was much worse than she had revealed. He turned on her impatiently, demanding to be admitted to the house and shown to his father's room; and Martha, lifting the lantern high, straightway led him up the stairs to the captain's apartments.

Captain Stanley was in bed, but awake, to receive them. To Dare's relief there was little sign of serious illness to be seen in his father's face.

"What's this about being beaten up by the smugglers?" Dare demanded affectionately when the first few embarrassed moments of their greeting were over.

As he lay in bed, all that could be seen of the captain was his head, but that was clear enough evidence of his character and former profession. The head was round, and the hair on it close cut; the face full and red, the eyes blue and twinkling, the mouth firm but able to relax in mellow moments, the chin square and dogged. A man whom you would like and trust on sight, one in whom you would readily confide, and to whom you would not hesitate to give responsibility.

He smiled at Dare as the latter lightly asked his question so as to hide his real feelings.

"So Martha told you," said the captain. "Yes, Dare, first blood to the smugglers, my boy."

"Hurt much?" asked Dare shyly. He had never witnessed his father helpless before.

"No, no," the captain was quick to say. "My arm's broken below the elbow, and my ankle's sprained a bit, but I'll be as well as ever in two weeks. In fact, I'm going to get up to-morrow, but I won't be able to move about, confound it. But sit down, sit down. And you there, Ben--come in."

Ben had been hanging about outside the door, and at the order he came rolling into the bedroom. He stopped at the foot of the bed and raised his hand in salute.

"Howdy-do, cap'n? Bad news, cap'n. In dock for repairs, I hears."

The captain nodded, still retaining his smile.

"Leakin' bad, cap'n?" queried Ben.

"Oh no," said the captain, and repeated the information he had given Dare concerning the extent of his injuries.

"It might be worse," said Ben, and added truculently, "I'd like to have a go at them fellers."

"And I too!" put in Dare, indignant at the treatment to which his father had been subjected. "How did it happen?"

"That's a long story," said the captain, "but I know you won't go to bed till you hear it, so make yourselves comfortable. Ben, sit down and take it easy while Martha makes you both something hot."

They obeyed, and Captain Stanley wrinkled his forehead in the effort of concentration as he prepared to accede to their wishes.

"In the first place, this is a much more difficult business than I expected," he began.

"Ah!" said Ben, leaning forward with eager interest.

"Yes. These chaps here are a crafty lot, and hard--hard as nails. It's my belief they won't stop at anything short of murder to prevent anyone spoiling their trade. And close! I've never met such closeness. I've been here nearly three weeks now, and I haven't found out a fact that's of real importance, though I've discovered a few things that bear upon the case and reveal the extent of the difficulty we're up against.

"But I'd better begin at the beginning. The day after I landed I took over the office here. The tide-waiter was helpful but not very enthusiastic about my coming. In fact, the majority of the people seem to resent it. The merchants are the only men who are downright glad to see me. There's some resentment naturally at Johnson's being fired. He's lived here a long time and has his home here still. The truth of it is, of course, the majority of the people benefit by the smuggling, for it's not only liquor and tobacco that's smuggled, but commodities like sugar, luxuries such as perfume, and much more extensive than that, the smuggling of gear. But the tobacco and liquor trade is the heaviest.

"This attitude of the townspeople--the place, by the way, is little more than a village--made things difficult for me from the start. Naturally I'd expected to extract a good deal of information from the people, but they won't talk. As for my predecessor in office, I couldn't very well, in the nature of things, expect to learn much from him. He turned over the office to me and left me to work out my own salvation.

"The news of my coming travelled fast, of course, and no doubt the smugglers knew it before anyone else. I received a letter hinting at bribery before I'd been here a week, and when I didn't answer it I received another, threatening me and advising me to go back to St. John's, as Saltern wasn't a healthy place for busybodies. I didn't take any notice, of course. I've been threatened before. I kept on with my work.

"I hired a boat and sailed up and down the coast by day and night. I took long walks on the cliff-head when there was a chance of being unobserved. And last of all, I kept my ears well open, but for all I saw or discovered I might have saved myself the trouble. Nevertheless, I knew that all I had to do was to keep at it. Something was bound to turn up. Someone was sure to talk. Or the smugglers were sure to make a slip or to relax their vigilance some time or other.

"The smugglers and the villagers probably realized this as much as I did, and in the first ten days I was here I became the most unpopular man in the district. They'd all found out by that time that I wasn't to be bribed or frightened off by threatening letters. So they changed their tactics and commenced an offensive. I found myself being deliberately hindered in my work. My boat's gear was stolen and when afterwards I kept the new gear locked up, they sunk the boat at her moorings. The windows of the house here were broken late one night--pure hooliganism, that--and the man who was helping me work the boat gave up the job. And I found I couldn't get another, though I offered big money. Those who would have liked to take the money were afraid. The gang here really dominates the district. They're not outlaws, but they're very nearly becoming so. Of course, there's no police force. A sleepy fat old constable keeps the peace, but he's practically useless except to settle domestic quarrels and to fine people for keeping dogs without a licence.

"I had to deal with the hooliganism alone, but all I could do was to lodge a complaint and guard against similar trouble in future. For a while I was successful. Then I was caught, not off my guard, but in a defenceless position, without a weapon except a heavy walking-stick, for I don't believe in carrying a revolver."

A knock at the door interrupted the narrative at this point, and Martha came in bearing three steaming bowls of chocolate and a plate of sandwiches. She refused to leave the room until the chocolate had been drunk and the sandwiches eaten.

When Martha, satisfied, finally left the room the captain took up the thread of his story.

"I made up my mind I'd keep a closer watch on it. One day I took up a stand on a small hill overlooking the road three miles from the town, and with the aid of a pair of binoculars spied on all who passed. And I had a piece of luck; for I'd not been there an hour when I saw two horse-drawn carts meet and stop. The men driving them engaged in conversation, and I actually saw a bottle which I dare say contained whiskey change hands, and also a package which looked suspiciously like a box of tobacco.

"Of course, that was a very slight exchange, and I might easily have been mistaken in the articles passed, but I didn't think so then, and later something occurred which proved, or at least made me feel certain, that I was right.

"I began to puzzle out where the traffic had its head. Spaleen, I thought, was too far away to be considered practicable, seeing that the smugglers could have their cache so much nearer Saltern and the centre of Saltern Bay. I decided to examine a road map before I made any further investigations, and returned to town.

"That same day I located a road map in the office and discovered what I might have expected, that the Spaleen road was a devious one, and at two points it approached to within a few miles of the coast between Spaleen and Saltern.

"One of the points was near Spaleen, the other in the neighbourhood of Saltern. I fixed upon the latter as being relative to my suspicions. I suspected the smugglers of having a cache somewhere on the coast near Saltern and that the back-door of this cache gave upon the Spaleen road, which could be made to serve admirably the needs of distribution, as there was a great deal of traffic on it daily and movement of any kind would not be liable to excite the curiosity and suspicion of those who, either by nature of their profession or their sympathies, were antipathetic to the trade.

"The thing I had to do was to prove my suspicion well founded. But the trouble was, how? It's harder to escape observation on a country road than in a city street. I couldn't very well go in the daytime without my every movement being watched. And it was little use looking for a track to the coast on a dark night--and the nights have been particularly dark lately. The only thing to do was to compromise, and set out at dawn, when there were few people stirring. And that's what I did.

"Well, to cut a long story short, I was about four miles from the town and passing a wood when a gang sprang up from nowhere, and jumping on me from behind had me at their mercy before I could strike a blow or even turn upon them.

"They didn't trouble to tie me up but hit out with their boots, and one of them lay about him with a heavy stick. I thought they were going to finish me, but just before I lost my senses I heard one of them shout: 'Don't kill him; Payter said only make him wish he was dead!'"

Both Dare and Ben broke out into indignant speech at healing this, then allowed the captain to finish.

"They dumped me in a bush a gunshot from the road. That's where I was when I came to. I would have been pretty badly situated, for I couldn't walk, if a passing countryman hadn't heard my shouts for help and taken me to Saltern in his cart.

"I sent for the doctor, feeling pretty bad. Apart from my arm, and a twisted ankle, a great number of bruises and two cuts on the head, I was in excellent condition, he told me ironically, and sent me to bed. And here I am."

Dare and Ben, who had hitherto restrained their feelings, now broke into excited comment.

"Of all the dirty, underhand, mean ways of fighting!" exclaimed Dare.

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