Death in the West Wind Read Online Free PDF Page B

Topsham. She was probably bound for there so he’ll know who the owners are.”
    “Can I help at all? I’m an apothecary and if anyone is lying wounded I could assist them.”
    “But there’s no devil on there.”
    “Did you search thoroughly?”
    “As best I could, yes.” The fisherman eyed John up and down. “Anyway another pair of hands wouldn’t come amiss. Can you climb a rope?”
    “I haven’t done so for some years.”
    “Well you’ll have to if you want to get aboard.”
    It was one of the most perilous ventures the Apothecary had ever undertaken. Shoes and shirt had to be shed on the beach prior to swimming out to the schooner, whose draught demanded that she stayed in fairly deep water. Having got out to the bobbing vessel, the next hurdle was to grab the end of the rope, which rose and fell with the motion of the ship, then somehow to heave oneself out of the water and clamber up it. Puffing and panting and feeling like some decrepit ancient, John finally managed to reach the top and, grasping the ship’s rail, haul himself over, realising as he did so that his palms were rubbed raw. A moment or two later he was joined by three of the others, all come aboard to get the ship’s anchor down.
    The man who had first spoken to John now issued orders. “Let’s turn the capstan, lads. You, Sir, you search the ship. Jeb, who’s been steering her, can help.”
    It was the silence, John decided, that was so eerie. Walking through the cabins there was indeed every sign of recent occupation, and in the dining area places were set for a meal. The teapot which stood nearby was by now almost cold, yet by touching it the Apothecary could feel that it had only lost heat a short while ago. Cups were out, as was a jug of milk and a loaf of bread, and there was even some cheese, rather hard but edible. Yet no voice spoke, nobody called out, the only sound the lapping of the waves and the seductive west wind playing in the great canvas sails. With his spine crawling with fear, John was glad to get back on deck.
    In the distance he could see Jeb searching the stern, on his hands and knees in order not to miss anything, while the other three men were heaving round the capstan with much rattling of heavy chain. John went to the prow, complete with its mermaid figurehead, to hunt there. Then suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks, his heart beating fast. For the carving of the mergirl was so fine that it seemed to him, just for a moment, that it had a veil of spun gold hair hanging down. blowing in the capricious breeze. Then his brain caught up with his eyes and he realised that no figurehead, however intricately exectuted, could possibly give such an illusion. That there was in fact somebody there.
    “Who’s that?” he called out, not loudly but fearfully.
    Nobody answered and John took a step forward. The curtain of hair was streaming outwards like silver gilt, like silk, like that of someone he had seen only too recently.
    “Juliana?” he said, his voice only just above a whisper.
    She did not move to reply to him and every alarm bell in Christendom sounded in the Apothecary’s brain. Running forward he saw that she lay, face downwards, draped over the figurehead, her arms hanging down on either side of it, the movement of the ship giving them a life they did not possess as they swayed gently, the hands totally relaxed.
    “God almighty,” said John, and raising Juliana by the shoulders, stared into her face. She looked asleep, despite the terrible bruising and cuts she had sustained and the blood that had dried round her mouth, yet this was a sleep that surely was the deepest of them all. Gently, the Apothecary put his head to her heart — but there was only silence.
    Very carefully, he laid the shift-clad corpse back as he had found it, swiftly kissing Juliana’s brow before turning her face down. Then he walked round to where the fishermen had just succeeded in dropping anchor.
    “I am sorry to tell you