The Inn On The Marsh

by Lena Kennedy

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

Time alone would heal the sorrows of Hollinbury, bright dreams banish the old unhappy ghosts . . . The Malted Shovel, exuberant heart and soul of Hollinbury Hamlet, buzzed with talk while the ale flowed. Talk of Dumb Lukey's crazed acts and the romance between Lucinda and Joe Lee, the Thames bargee. Talk of the Crimea and the terror of Napoleon. At the tavern, hard-headed Beatrice and her sister Dot care for their invalid father and for Lucinda, their pretty orphaned niece. The inn is their livelihood but village business is ever Beatrice's business too. And now some dark cloud has descended on them all . . . **************** What readers are saying about THE INN ON THE MARSH 'Fantastic read' - 5 STARS 'A page-turner all the way through' - 5 STARS 'Brilliant!! I loved it' - 5 STARS 'Kept me hooked - I couldn't put it down' - 5 STARS 'I loved this book and didn't want it to end'

Release date: May 9, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 347

Sample

1

The Alianora

Joe Lee leaned lightly on the polished steering wheel of his brightly painted barge. The windows of the steering house were spotless as was all the brasswork which glinted in the late afternoon sun. As he surveyed the gleaming buckets and water cans – gaily decorated with colourful birds and flowers – Joe Lee’s heart swelled with pride. His lovely Alianora was spick and span and easily the best-looking barge on those southern waterways.

For a moment he watched his two little sisters playing happily on the towpath and then turned dreamily back to the brown waters of the river. A light breeze ruffled his chestnut hair. With his freckled face and keen blue eyes, Joe Lee was a good-looking young man.

Down below in the cabin, Joe Lee’s mother, Helga, was preparing the evening meal. She was a faded little woman whose shoulders and back were rounded from living continuously in cramped quarters. As she pottered around the shining stove, her sharp face peered out from under her grey hair, which hung down in untidy wisps. Her eyes, once as bright and piercing as a bird’s, were now dull and listless. Around her shoulders, she wore a soft woollen shawl. Though very clean, it was old and shabby. Helga had spent countless hours cooking, cleaning and polishing in that little cabin below deck. Seldom did she ever relax, for she had very little time for leisure and she certainly paid no attention to her own appearance.

Joe Lee, her first son, had been born aboard the Alianora, as had all her children, including the ones who had not survived her. The Alianora was her world, for she had always worked hard alongside her husband, for the many long years they had sailed the waterways of England.

But now that Helga was sick and prematurely aged, her sons frequently begged her to go ashore, to take a cottage and to send the younger ones to school. But Helga would not hear of it. The Alianora was her life, she would tell them. And it had been that way since her marriage to that hefty bargee, their father.

Helga had been born to a life on water. She had come from the Netherlands and lived all her years on the waterways. And, miraculously, she had maintained a code of cleanliness and respectability for her own family. In those days, the barge people who sailed the canals and rivers of England were regarded as very low class. The barges usually carried animal manure and human sewerage from the big towns to be dumped at the dung wharf, further down the creek, where it would be filtered away by the tides. Most of the bargees piled their vessels high with filth and did not care that this attracted a vast army of flies wherever they went. And with their huge families of dirty, illiterate children, the barge people were not made to feel welcome to those who lived on the land.

The Alianora, however, was different. Her long hatch was always tightly covered to keep out the flies, and her gleaming bodywork put all the other barges to shame. Helga’s achievement was all the more remarkable because her husband was an uncouth Geordie who had sailed the deep seas in his youth. The rough life on the salty seas had left its mark, and Geordie was now a cruel and bitter man, addicted to drink.

Yes, life had been very hard for Helga, but now that her sons were almost full grown men, they sheltered and protected her as she had never been before. And generally, the whole family depended on her eldest son Joe Lee, who was the calmest, most capable and hardworking of them all.

The setting sun glowed down on the water as Joe Lee watched a group of village women wade knee-deep into the watercress beds which stretched under the bridge. The sound of festivity wafted across the fields from the inn on the hill which stood outlined against the sky. Joe Lee squinted at the inn’s tall crooked chimney and the winding path leading down to the river bank. It was Saturday night, and there was bound to be trouble at the Malted Shovel, he thought. The insular-minded inhabitants of this hamlet of Hollinbury had a particularly strong aversion to the barges – ‘shit boats’ they called them – and they loathed the loud-mouthed nomadic barge skippers who dared to anchor at weekends just outside their local inn.

Joe Lee now moved his gaze to fix intently on a small attic window high up on the gabled roof of the inn; he was patiently watching and waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly he received the signal. Smiling broadly, he took his arm from the wheel and smoothed his hair with one work-worn hand, before jumping lightly down onto the landing stage. Lucinda had waved to him from the window, a sign for him to meet her at the churchyard.

Briskly Joe Lee stepped out along the path, casting furtive glances to each side to make sure no one was spying on them.

Lucinda was there before him. As he came through the gate, Joe Lee caught the glint of the sun on her long golden hair which she had tied back with a blue ribbon. She was kneeling demurely over her mother’s grave, her sweet doll-like face set in a serious expression as she placed a large jar of red-gold chrysanthemums beside the headstone.

In a second, Joe Lee was by her side. Catching hold of her hand, he pulled her into the shadow of a huge shady yew tree and they leaned towards each other in a close embrace.

Lucinda was small and well formed. Her high-waisted white dress was tied with a blue ribbon that matched the one in her hair and accentuated her lovely breasts. Joe Lee never met her without feeling his heart heave. Lucinda was completely unaware of her beauty, and her virginal modesty made her seem to Joe Lee all the sweeter.

‘Oh, Joe Lee!’ Lucinda whispered coyly. ‘Not here, someone might see us.’

Staying in the shade of the ancient church, the couple walked hand in hand towards the deep black dyke that carried the salt water over the marsh back to the sea. There, as the cool evening came in over the marshlands and the village women carried their bundles of watercress back to their homes, Joe Lee and Lucinda lay happily together, oblivious of everything except the other’s presence.

Inside the Malted Shovel, the evening was beginning with much activity and bustle. Lucinda’s Aunt Beatrice was polishing the pewter tankards at high speed, while Dorothy, Beatrice’s sister, swept out the dirty sawdust, and put clean sawdust down on the floor, spreading it carefully where the heavy boots would tread, and around the row of spittoons which most customers invariably missed. These two unmarried ladies ran the Malted Shovel and never hesitated to broadcast their opinions to anyone who would listen.

‘Dirty lot of blighters,’ commented Aunt Beat. ‘That’s the second time today we’ve had to put new sawdust down. It’s them old bargees from the shit boats what does it.’

Auntie Dot’s loose mouth stretched into a grin that made her teeth loom out. She seemed to have too many for her jaw. ‘It’s a public bar,’ she remarked. ‘We can’t forbid no one to come in. But soon they’ll be traipsing all over the bar parlour.’

‘Never!’ cried Beat. ‘Pa will not let them in there, it ain’t right.’ Her huge untidy head shook like a wet dog. ‘It’s not healthy having all them barges out there all weekend.’

‘I can’t see what we can do about it,’ commented Dot, her white mop cap bobbing as she carried the cardboard sawdust box under her arm.

‘Better get that girl in,’ said Beat suddenly. ‘Now where is she?’

‘She’s gone to the churchyard,’ replied Dot. ‘You know how she likes to put fresh flowers on her mother’s grave.’

‘Well, call her in,’ insisted Beat. ‘We don’t want her mooching about in the graveyard after dark.’

Dot popped her head out of the door. ‘Lucinda! Lucinda!’ she screeched.

Within a couple of minutes, Lucinda came running, over the bridge, her white cotton dress clinging tightly to her trim figure in the cool evening breeze. She carried the blue hair ribbon, now rumpled, in her hand, and her golden locks looked very untidy. ‘Coming, Auntie,’ she called breathlessly.

‘Now come in, Lucy Cindy. Let’s get your Grandpa down. Whatever are you doing out there? Just look at your nice clean ribbon.’ Muttering and grumbling, Dot hustled Lucinda inside. As she did so, she did not notice how Lucinda’s cornflower-blue eyes shone with the light of passion. But if she had, she would not have recognised it for what it was, never having experienced love herself.

Every evening, Grandpa was brought down into the bar parlour down a home-made ramp leading from his bedroom on the first floor. Amos Dell had once been a sea captain, but was now an invalid and so grossly overweight that his clothes were bursting at the seams. His arms and legs were no longer of any use and his grey-brown beard, which had grown down to his waist, covered his bloated body like a thatch. But his voice as still loud and vibrant and within that big bald dome of a head an active brain still functioned. ‘I’m still the governor here,’ he would frequently remind everyone.

Each night Lucinda and Dot would heave Grandpa’s huge helpless body into a rickety bathchair and together they would push and guide it down the ramp and into the bar parlour. Then, seated beside the cosy log fire, and soaking up the ale which he drank by the gallon, Grandpa was content for the evening.

The small private bar was open only to a very few privileged customers – generally, the local professionals, such as the doctor, the farmer, the smithy or the squire. There these men held long conversations about the good old days, drinking steadily, and complaining about the state of the country.

First to arrive that evening was Sam Shulmead, the smithy, still dressed in his leather cap and apron, with his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal magnificent biceps. Sam was a hefty dogmatic man with a sour expression on his face. He had come to the inn with his sons, Matt and Mark. They were strikingly built boys, tall, dark and very handsome, and aged seventeen and eighteen. At the door of the inn, father and sons parted, with the boys heading for the public bar as their father turned in to the bar parlour.

Hanging in a row on the low oak beams across the bar were the shining Shulmead tankards. Each one was engraved with its owner’s name – Sam, Matt and Mark. As they entered, Beat reached up for the tankards, filled them with strong frothy ale, and pushed them across the counters at the men.

This would be repeated all night until closing time. No money ever passed hands but a record of the family’s consumption of ale was kept on a big slate on the wall. The final amount would be paid for by Sam before they all left. With a grim face and watchful eye, Sam kept track of his sons from the other bar, raising his huge fist in warning whenever he considered that they had drunk enough. These two elder boys were his right hand at the forge. He had trained them practically from birth, and he paid them no wages for their work but he was occasionally heard to remark that he say ‘they wanted for nought’.

Some time into the evening, another Shulmead son would come creeping into the inn through the back door. This was poor dumb Lukey. He was thin and gawky with a mouth that gaped and red-rimmed eyes. He was about sixteen, and with his shambling gait he would wander around the inn collecting the empty tankards and returning them to the customers full to the brim again. Then out in the kitchen, he would sit to mind the hot pies. He could not speak at all. He could only gesticulate and mouth strange noises. Lukey was an imbecile and would always be one, having suffered brain damage when his brutal father beat him senseless when Lukey was a tiny child. Lukey had never ever fully recovered his senses since then.

Auntie Beat and Auntie Dot always welcomed Lukey for he saved them a lot of trotting about. They fed him and fussed him and were kind to him, so their warm kitchen became an important refuge for him.

Now in came the bargees – rugged men in caps and chokers. They always came and left in a group, and kept their own company, congregated in the public bar. There among the local farm labourers and men and women from the brick fields, there always was a tense atmosphere. And more often than not a fight would break out. When this happened, Aunt Dot would scurry away in fright, but Aunt Beat always waded in, wielding a large wooden rolling pin and a heavy pepper pot. The man who had started or was continuing the fight would get pepper in his eyes and a hefty whack on the head with the rolling pin, and he would soon retire from the fray. Thus Auntie Beat kept order at the Malted Shovel.

The inn was the centre of the neighbourhood. It was here that all the latest news and gossip was circulated. Here friends and enemies were made. The whole of life existed here in this one lonely inn beside the creek that crossed the Thames marshland.

As the noise from the bars came up through the wooden floors, Lucinda sat by her attic window and stared out across the field towards the river. She was never allowed in the bar at night and nowadays spent her Saturday evenings in this position, looking across at where her lover stood.

Down on the Alianora, as she lay at anchor in the creek, Joe Lee stood on deck looking wistfully back at his beautiful Lucinda. The whole summer had been like this. And both wondered where it would all end.

Drinking in the public bar on this Saturday night were Joe Lee’s father, Geordie, and one of his younger brothers. Joe Lee himself did not drink alcohol and had no desire to do so. He would just wait until they stumbled back on board the barge when he would help them to bed. Within the smokey, overheated bar, a heated discussion was in progress. It had begun in the bar parlour, where a clerk from the town hall had let slip the news about a certain motion having been brought before the town elders. Apparently, a petition had been signed by the more affluent members of Hollinbury expressing their opposition to the dung barges being regularly anchored by the inn at weekends in wait for the flood tide to carry them down to the dung wharf. According to the clerk, the elders had agreed to give serious consideration to this problem. They had also, he told them, passed a resolution to go ahead with a new canal, the project which had been abandoned five years earlier for the lack of funds.

‘It will pass right through the hamlet,’ the clerk informed them. ‘The idea is to link the Thames with the Medway.’

‘Lot a good that will be,’ growled Amos. ‘Thames skippers sail on the ebb tide around Grain. They always have done.’

‘But it will cut off forty miles of treacherous sea voyage,’ suggested the clerk, a small man with the rat-like face.

‘Nonsense!’ roared Amos. ‘Thames skippers will not use a narrow canal.’

‘Who’s goin’ to dig it out, then?’ asked the farmer. ‘Can’t get through them chalk cliffs, that’s for sure.’

‘Who else will dig the canal but them poor devils out at St Mary’s?’ retorted the doctor.

‘What? The prisoners out on the hulks, you mean?’ The farmer slammed down his tankard in surprise.

‘The very same. Dying off like flies, they are, out there with the malaria ague.’

‘They say they are starved,’ said another. ‘I saw them digging in the clay pits and it was not a pretty sight.’

‘I don’t pity no damn Frenchman,’ roared Amos. ‘They gets all they deserve.’

‘But they are not criminals,’ said the clerk. ‘They’re just prisoners-of-war, taken while defending their own country.’

At this remark Amos almost exploded. His huge face turned red and fiery. ‘Don’t you tell me, lad, because I know. And I’ve seen what they do to our sailor lads in their hell holes of prisons.’

‘Calm down, Amos,’ said the farmer. ‘He’s entitled to an opinion.’

‘Then let him keep it to himself,’ snarled Amos.

The clerk left hurriedly soon afterwards, but by that time his news had spread to the public bar and even to the bargees who sat in their corner puffing evil-smelling pipes. They were a hefty bunch of men dressed in shabby clothes but the largest of them all and the most voracious, was Big Geordie, skipper of the Alianora. He had a bullish expression on his florid face, and his faded red hair was very sparse on top. And, like Amos, he had a loud voice which carried over the bar.

The two Shulmead lads leaned on the counter and were talking to Sergeant Jock Campbell of the Scots Fusiliers, about the army, their favourite topic. An old sweat and pioneer of many battles, Jock was now in charge of the French prisoners out in the hulks. This was a soft sort of job for this army-trained bully, he loved to tell of his old exploits, and the two young brothers listened with avid interest.

Jock’s only weaknesses in life were booze and women, and it was well known that he occupied the bed of Geordie’s sister, Larlee, who worked in the brickfields. Larlee herself had just swaggered in to the inn looking exceptionally clean and tidy, for it was Saturday night. She wore the outfit that she saved for Saturday nights and although the dress was worn and dingy and accentuated her sallow skin, it was neatly pressed, and the pale green slip that showed through the white material revealed the trouble she’d gone to in dressing. On her head was an artfully wrapped turban that she’d created herself from some extra fabric, after seeing some of the fancier ladies come through the hamlet wearing them. Turbans had become popular after Napoleon conducted his Egyptian campaigns, and they were one of the more benign effects of the seemingly endless war with France.

Larlee was now a faded beauty but had once been a tall, dark vivacious barge girl who had married a lad from the hamlet. Soon after she had borne him two children, her husband had been pressed to go to sea and had never returned. So in order to support her daughters, Larlee had gone to work in the brick fields. Within five years she had become morally and physically dejected, and was called the local whore. Now her once sparkling eyes were dark and hard, her once lily-white teeth had gaps in them, were yellow and there were burn scars all over her face and arms. Whether she was drunk or not, her language was always blasphemous. Big Geordie could not tolerate such a sister and there was no love lost between them, so Larlee was no longer acknowledged as one of them by the barge folk. She had, as it were, gone over to the other side.

But Larlee cared little for anyone’s opinion of her. She drank, smoked and swore as good as any man and anyone who took her fancy would be taken home to bed by her on Saturday nights. And nowadays she earned a good living employing young children to assist her in the brick fields.

‘I’ll never starve again,’ she would often say, ‘not while I have two hands to work with.’

The news about the new canal was quickly circulated. ‘It’s coming straight through the hamlet,’ Beat said to Dot.

‘Well,’ replied Dot, ‘I hope it gets rid of them shit boats at last. It’s them that’s brought all this sickness, with the little ones dying like flies. ’Tis brought from the town by those mucky barges.’

Then, clucking like a hen, Dot went out into the kitchen to get one of the large mutton pies that were so popular with the customers.

In the kitchen dumb Lukey sat watching the oven, mouth agape. It was his job to watch the pies, to see that they kept warm but did not get baked up. This he achieved with equanimity, spittle drooling from the sides of his mouth at the thought of a good supper that Auntie Beat would provide for him later in the evening. The argument in the bar had heated up as the bargees discussing loudly the pros and cons of the new canal.

‘It will link two rivers,’ one said, ‘and save time. And time is money.’

‘There will be a tariff, that’s for sure,’ warned another.

‘Well, I reckon I’ll stick to the estuary for I am used to it,’ another replied.

Suddenly Larlee’s shrill voice was heard above the din. ‘Time we got them bleeding shit boats out of the creek.’

Big Geordie whirled around to face her. ‘Whore!’ he snarled. ‘Soldiers’ floozie.’

‘Jock!’ screamed Larlee. ‘Geordie has insulted me!’ She stood defiantly in the middle of the bar, hands on hips, her black hair showing beneath her now dishevelled turban, and the gold loops in her ears gleaming.

Jock slammed down his tankard of ale and swung around, swiping Big Geordie on the jaw with his fist. Geordie staggered backwards but had regained his balance in a flash. Within seconds, the two heavyweights were locked in combat, and in no time, the rest of the bargees had joined in the battle. Tumbling out of the crowded bar, the fighting raged out into the courtyard. Like two great monsters, these big men, carried away by drink, fought on as the yard outside became a mass of struggling figures. And all the while Larlee was screaming encouragement while Beat defended her bar with the rolling pin and pepper pot.

Down the road, old Charlie was dozing in his sentry box, supposedly guarding the bridge. The noise from the inn woke him up immediately and he was soon blowing his whistle to bring the soldiers running from their posts guarding the road to the fort.

The arrival of the military soon scattered the crowd. But after it had dispersed, one large figure lay still on the ground with blood oozing from his mouth. It was big Geordie breathing his last with a knife stuck in his back.

Joe Lee had heard the fight going on from his position on the barge; and he was up at the inn within minutes, as if he had had some notion that his family would be involved in the fray. The drunken sergeant, Jock Campbell, was being led off into custody as he arrived.

As Joe Lee and his brother Tom Lee carried their father back to the Alianora, they knew that there was no hope, for Geordie’s life’s blood flowed out from a gaping hole in his back. And by the morning big bargee had left this world as violently as he had lived in it. Helga knelt beside Geordie’s massive body with tears coursing down her faded cheeks. He had never been an ideal husband but he was her man and the father of her children, and now he was gone.

That Sunday morning, the seriousness of the affray at the Malted Shovel had made its mark. Aunt Beat and Aunt Dot knelt with Lucinda in the old church, while the vicar rendered a long sermon on the evils of drink. And the villagers sat silent and subdued in the pews. Down on the landing stage, stood Larlee, still very drunk, waiting for the return of her imprisoned Jock and yelling insults to one and all.

Joe Lee sat out on the deck with his brother, with a grim expression on his fresh young face. Over and over in his mind he wondered who could have killed Big Geordie. It was surely not Campbell, for he had never been known to carry a knife. Guns, fists and boots were his weapons.

The Alianora was now impounded until the authorities decided where to lay the blame, for Joe Lee was not the only one to have doubts about Jock Campbell.

‘It strikes me, Tom,’ said Joe Lee, ‘that someone came up from behind him while he and Jock were struggling on the ground.’

‘But who?’ asked the puzzled Tom Lee. He had been very drunk and remembered very little of that terrible night’s fracas.

‘The doctor has removed the blade,’ continued Joe Lee. ‘He says it was an ordinary table knife driven in with a terrible force. The handle is still missing.’

‘Perhaps if we look we’ll be able to find it,’ suggested Tom Lee.

Joe Lee shook his head. ‘I searched at dawn to try to find some evidence, but I found nothing.’

‘What shall we do then?’ Tom Lee looked to his elder brother for advice.

‘Not much. You and I must go on and sail the barge and take care of Mother and the girls. It’s the most we can do,’ he said, thinking of Lucinda.

Later that day the other bargees came along to pay their respects and give donations so that the family could take Big Geordie to be buried in his homeland in the north, just as he would have wished.

At the Malted Shovel, Lucinda stared desolately out of her window. She was not allowed down on the landing stage until this dreadful matter had been cleared up. Between her aunts downstairs, this was the general topic of conversation, as throughout the village. No one could talk of anything else, whether outside the church or in the village street.

That Sunday morning Sam Shulmead drove out in his pony cart with three of his sons aboard – Matt and Mark and John, his youngest, who was just twelve years old. John was a fair, pale boy whose shoulders drooped from working in the brick fields ever since his mother’s death. For Sam Shulmead believed in work. This puny child would never be a man, he thought, unless he built up his muscles. So young John worked twelve hours a day carrying hods of clay from one place to another, and he had deep scars on his hands from handling the hot bricks from the kilns.

Sam was a deeply religious man. He did not hold with the church; the chapel of Zion in the village was his place of worship. So each Sunday he drove off with his three sons down into the village, while his fourth son, dumb Lukey, was allowed to stay home to mind the forge. The truth was that Sam was deeply ashamed to be seen with his idiot son. Like everyone else, the Shulmead men were all rather subdued that morning, except for Lukey, who drooled and gabbled worse than ever and seemed unusually excited. Only a swift kick to his rear from his irate father had quietened him before they left.

The inn did not open on Sundays, so after church Beat and Dot prepared their family Sunday lunch.

‘It’s certainly a mystery,’ announced Aunt Dot. ‘It gives me the shivers whenever I think about it.’

‘I knew there was trouble brewing,’ declared Aunt Beat. ‘I could just feel it in me bones.’

The Sunday tablecloth was spread out on the table and Aunt Beat went to get out their cutlery, precious knives, forks and spoons, a family heirloom only used on Sundays. For the rest of the week they were kept in their neat leather case in the dresser drawer in the kitchen.

‘Yes, it’s a complete mystery,’ Beat said, shaking her head. ‘But I do know that it could not have been Larlee, for I saw her still in the bar at the time, scrapping with that lowdown Wally, the herdsman. They certainly hate each other! God knows what goes on in those cottages.’

‘Big Geordie was her brother,’ said Aunt Dot gently. ‘One never . . .’

‘Yes, but there was no love lost there,’ returned her more practical sister. Suddenly she gasped. Before her in the open dresser drawer the beloved cutlery lay in a neat row before her. But one table knife was missing. Immediately, before her eyes swam a picture of dumb Lukey’s drooling face as he had sat here in the kitchen the night before minding the pies. Quickly she shut the drawer. ‘Use the old cutlery, Dot,’ she said casually. ‘I can’t be bothered to lay up the best ones today.’

Both Lucinda and Auntie Beat were very quiet over lunch. Dot and Grandpa did try to interest them both, with conversation, but they were distant and lost in their own thoughts.

‘I am of the opinion,’ Amos announced ponderously, ‘that those bargees did Big Geordie in themselves and are now trying to lay the blame on our hamlet.’

‘Oh yes! you could be right, Pa,’ cried Dot excitedly, as she picked her large teeth. Dot always agreed with her father.

Beat got up to clear the dishes, sighing a deep sigh. And Lucinda, looking quite pained, said, ‘Please may I leave the table?’ Without waiting for permission she dashed off to her room where she watched from her attic window.

Across the field, where a soldier stood guard over her, the Alianora looked so quiet and sad. There were no children playing on deck and no Joe Lee at the wheel. She felt so lonely and strangely apprehensive, as if she had had some premonition of her future.

At dawn the next day the tide rushed inland to fill the dykes and inlets, and float the barges at last. The bargees prepared to set sail, to rid themselves of their stinking cargoes at the dung wharf, before navigating down river once more.

The Alianora, usually the first to set sail, was now the last when the soldiers who had guarded her all night were finally called off. Joe Lee was given permission to leave and sail north to bury his father. The military had decided to hush the whole matter up. As far as they were concerned, it was just an unfortunate incident, resulting from a drunken brawl – not an uncommon happening in those unruly times. It was announced that Sergeant Campbell would be disciplined, but beyond that, as far as the military was concerned, the matter would be forgotten.

Larlee had a terrific hangover and was looking very blowsy on Monday morning, as she stood out on the road waiting for the children to join her. When the tired ragged little figures appeared they followed her in single file, plodding all the five miles over the marsh to the brick kilns, not to return home until sundown. But Larlee had tears in her eyes as she watched the Alianora sail away and she found herself wishing she were a child again, playing on the deck with her big brother Geordie. But Geordie was no more. He was far away from there, way up in the heavens.

Lucinda peered out of the window at the barges sailing off and then went back to bed, pulling the bedclothes around her and soaking the pillow with her tears. Joe Lee had left her.

Soon