By two o’clock the Belle was stripped, and it was sitting higher in the water. Some of the crew took to the beach. The stronger ones remained. No orders were required. They knew what they must do and they were happy doing it. They worked the pumps and put bilge-water back into the sea. At ten past two they laid out kedge anchors on the seaward side, attached by cables to the one working capstan and to windlasses. Some anchors didn’t bite, but those that did were firm enough to take the winch. The barrel of the capstan groaned. The captain too. He thought the wire would bite right through. But, to cheers from the beach, the stern was lifted and the bow was pulled around. The kedge anchors and the lines from fishing boats tied to the waistings of the masts were now enough to hold the Belle secure while the sea came upon its highest autumn tide. And how the sea came up! Not swelling, but flat and deep and strong, shouldering the beached ship’s keel and hefting it, unshakingly, free of the bar. The sand released its grip. The Belle was afloat. It lifted off the bar and slipped into the channel with the resignation of an old and wounded seal. Now it was ready for the towing back to dock at Wherrytown. The tide rose up against the stern. It gripped the ship in foaming chevrons of water. It pushed. It was as if the ocean had wearily reclaimed the Belle, had reconciled it to the water, as if the sea were saying to the ship — and what sailor does not think the sea can speak? — ‘Enough’s enough. You must go home.’
WALTER HOWELLS put up some kegs of beer for everyone that night. There were too many people for the inn parlour, and so despite the cold they lit and warmed the courtyard with lanterns and braziers, and sat around on barrels and bales of straw with star-gazy pie and hot beer. The out-of-towny women hadn’t walked back to their cottages. They’d sleep in the agent’s salting hall. There’d be work for them until the pilchards were balked and packed, and all the unfit fish carted off by farmers as manure. They sat around selfconsciously. They’d had nowhere to wash. They had no change of clothes, and couldn’t match the fine, embroidered smocks that the townswomen had put on, or the dresses and the shawls that Katie Norris and Alice Yapp were wearing. They watched the men consuming too much drink too quickly. It wasn’t a comfortable mix — town and parish, off-comers, emigrants, the preacher. There was something deadening about the agent’s generosity. He gave them beer; he made them wait for cash.
The American sailors were, of course, the first to break the ice. Outsiders are always reckless. No one’s watching over them. They were exuberant. The Belle was off the bar. They would be going home, huzzah — but not quite yet! There was a little time for fun. They drank the health of all the fishermen whose boats had towed their ‘darling Belle’ back into town. Again, they flirted with wives and daughters. No one was too old or plain for their attentions, and that was charming. When ‘Captain Keg’ attempted a silent plantation dance with the portly daughter of the Wherrytown shipwright, the cry went up for music. John Peacock brought a damp and battered fiddle from the Belle. Another sailor fetched his bellows box. And soon there was a lively jig to dance away the cold. The women danced amongst themselves at first. Even the married ones. They didn’t simply foot the measure in their seats. There wasn’t any city etiquette in Wherrytown. Then, when all the beer had gone and they’d started on the punch, they let the men lay hold of them and danced in drunken pairs. The captain partnered Alice Yapp until Walter Howells intervened, and then they shared her, jig by jig. Ralph Parkiss showed Miggy how to step, then held her waist and showed her how to kiss. Her mother Rosie even took the hand of, first, old Skimmer, and then her neighbour Henry Dolly. Henry, she thought, was either clumsy from the drink or getting too familiar.
Katie Norris danced with all of the Americans. Her husband did not dance. He hadn’t got the frame for it, he said. He sat at the trestle table that had been carried from the inn and talked with Aymer Smith (with Mr Phipps the preacher eavesdropping) about the age and provenance of Earth, but kept an eye on his wife. He was happy to see her so admired and animated.
‘I can recommend a volume for your journey, Mr Norris,’ Aymer said. He didn’t even want to catch a glimpse of Miggy or her mother. He turned his back on all the dancing and the music. ‘It is the work of Mr Lyell. The Principles of Geology.’ He stole a glance at Preacher Phipps. ‘He proposes a world with no vestige of a beginning and no prospect of an end. It is a scientific world. Not one that owes itself to some Creation. An interesting book.’
‘It sounds so, Mr Smith.’ Robert Norris watched his wife pass from the hands of one sailor to another. He waved at her.
‘You wish to ask, I know, what geology might tell us about our moral world. I have considered it. And that is why I am a convinced Amender. I will throw light on that. You know the term?’
‘An interesting book,’ repeated Robert Norris. His wife’s skirts were swinging in the dance, billowing with air then wrapping round her legs.
‘Amendism is the scientific view that every offence — Mr Phipps might call it sin — should be settled only by reparations of an equal force.’
‘An eye for an eye,’ said Preacher Phipps absently. ‘The Bible precedes you.’
‘Not that. No eyes and teeth. I am talking of self-discipline. Those sailors who are drunk tonight on Mr Howells’s beer, for instance, would need to make amends tomorrow by fasting, say, or imbibing some unpleasing liquid, or buying but not drinking beers of equal value to those that have intoxicated them. There is a calm to be maintained between oneself and one’s behaviour …’
‘Indeed there is,’ said Robert Norris. Where was Katie?
‘Mr Phipps might recommend a different course — that it is enough to confess one’s sins and seek forgiveness. Amenders do not hold to that. It is our understanding, should we transgress, that there is, implicit in the sinful act, a second act of amends to balance out the first and re-establish calm. And so we labour to avoid the making of amends by controlling our offences.’ He looked Mr Phipps directly in the eye. ‘Amends are better than Amens, I think.’ But Mr Phipps would not be drawn. He was watching Katie Norris too. He was debating sin, but silently.
‘I see that I have silenced you,’ said Aymer. He’d had a beer too many. His tongue was hurtling. He tipped a chair up. It toppled to the ground. He’d make them concentrate. ‘Take this example, then. Should I, in a temper, upset a chair, I upright it to make amends. Like so. I put it in its proper place and restore the harmony I squandered …’ The music stopped, and so did Aymer Smith. It had occurred to him that George would have found a shorter way of explaining Amendism: ‘You stick your bum in fire, and you must sit on blisters.’ What would the preacher make of that?
By now John Peacock had run out of jigs. He played the bass stringed introduction to a round dance. ‘Form two circles; the gentleman should take the outer ring.’ Reluctant dancers were pulled up and dragged into the ring. Katie Norris ran up to the table. She knew her husband wouldn’t dance. She couldn’t ask a preacher — though this preacher stood and showed his readiness. She put her hand out for her roommate, Aymer Smith. ‘Step up,’ she said, flushed, irrefusable. She held his wrist and pulled. He stood opposing her until the music began. She spun twice beneath his arm. They back-to-backed. They swung. But then the partners changed and Aymer had to hold the hand of Amy Farrow from the town; then Nan Dolly (whose hands were briny from the fish), then Alice Yapp, then Miggy Bowe (she blushed, he blushed), then on through grandmamas, and fishing wives, and ten-year-olds, and Rosie Bowe. They didn’t have the breath or chance to talk; they had to spin and whirl and stamp, and then move on. At last he faced Katie Norris for the second time. The music stopped. They bowed. Her hair touched his.