Bell Rock

Bell Rock
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Copyright Oggbashan October 2017

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.


Clang!

Clang! Clang!

Clang!

How could I sleep with that irregularly tolling bell sounding every time I thought it had stopped? I peered at my watch. It was three thirty in the morning, late June, pitch black beyond my tent, and cold and raw outside. I snuggled back into my sleeping bag and tried to cover my ears to shut out the mournful bell.

I woke bleary-eyed hours after dawn. Automatically I cooked myself a breakfast and ate it before I was really aware that I was up and about. I couldn’t hear that bell but the memory still clanged in my head.

I hadn’t visited this part of South Wales before. Until last night I had been enjoying the area. It isn’t an obvious tourist destination but the scenery and buildings were just as attractive as better known places but with less people. I was camping in a field behind the public house. My car was parked beside my tent.

I had intended to move on today but I was tempted to stay. Amanda, the landlord’s daughter, had booked me in a few nights ago. They were quiet and I had time to talk to her once I had erected my tent. She was helping out while her mother was away visiting Amanda’s grandmother. Amanda works in Bristol a few miles from me but had taken a few days off. I’d like to see more of Amanda. I might stay as long as she does.

I washed up and left for a refreshing walk to the sea nearly a mile away and along the coastal path. When I reached the sea the tide was ebbing down the Bristol Channel. The tides here are dangerous, running fast either way, and very easy to misjudge. Today I would stay on the path at the top of the cliffs except where small streams trickled down valleys far too large for them.

I had nearly forgotten that irritating bell when I returned to my tent at dusk. I cleaned myself up and changed into more respectable clothing. Tonight the pub would provide my evening meal.

It was far too early when I entered the bar. The landlord was stacking clean glasses on shelves.

“Hello, Henry,” he said. “Fed up with your own company? The meals don’t start for a couple of hours yet.”

“I know, Mr Jones” I said. “I want to have an early night. I was kept awake last night by a bell ringing somewhere.”

The landlord looked at me as if he hadn’t seen me before.

“What did it sound like?” He seemed genuinely concerned.

“A slow irregular clanging,” I replied. “A deep note but irritatingly random. Every time I though it had stopped; it started again…”

“That’ll be the bell buoy on Bell Rock then,” Mr Jones said. He seemed relieved. Why?

“The bell buoy? What bell buoy? I haven’t seen a bell buoy.”

“You wouldn’t. It isn’t there anymore. It was removed in the 1960s when they modernised the buoy system for the Bristol Channel.”

“Are you telling me that I heard the ghost of a bell buoy?”

“Yes. All of us hear it from time to time. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t toll a message of doom. It just is.”

“Why was there a bell buoy?”

“I’ll tell you what, Henry. I’ll lend you one of my books about this area. It has several chapters about the Bell Rock and the shipwrecks there. I have to get on before the dining room starts to fill. What are you drinking?”

“A pint of your local bitter, please.”

“OK. I’ll get the book then pull your pint.” He turned towards the kitchen area. “Amanda? Can you take over for a minute or two?”

Amanda pulled my pint. Her father took longer than I had expected. Amanda and I discussed Bell Rock and the recent weather which had been unusually wet for late June.

When the Mr Jones returned, Amanda went back into the kitchen. The book was a modern paperback reprint of the original published in the 1960s. It was fairly thick with several pages of old photographs of the local coastline.

“Could I buy a copy of this locally?” I asked as I sipped my pint.

“I can sell you that one for eight pounds ninety-nine,” he answered. “I have a stock of them. The author used to be a regular.”

I paid for the book. I sat in a chair by the log fire and started to read. I continued over my meal. The landlord and Amanda were busy with the evening diners.

Bell Rock had originally been called Yns Iestyn after an anchorite who had his cell on what was then an island. In the fifteenth century, long after Iestyn had died, a storm swept the anchorite’s cell and the top soil off the island. Over the years the sea had eroded the rest until the island became a heap of jagged rocks only visible at low water. The name changed to Iestyn’s Rocks until the early nineteenth century when a prison transport hit them. The Esmeralda, bound for New South Wales with women sentenced to transportation, struck the rocks on a dark stormy September night after leaving Bristol, the Esmeralda’s last port of call in England. Most of the crew and the women prisoners drowned. A few were saved. After that shipwreck the rocks were renamed ‘Esmeralda Rocks’.

Within a year a public subscription had raised money for the rocks to be marked with a bell buoy that was anchored off the rocks while the wreck of the Esmeralda was still visible. Gradually the locals started referring to Esmeralda Rocks as Bell Rock because a superstition against mentioning the Esmeralda had grown. The book referred me to Chapter 11 for the details of the Esmeralda legend. I decided to leave Chapter 11 until later.

It was obvious I wouldn’t have a chance to talk to Amanda tonight. Back inside my tent I poured myself another pint of the local bitter from a four-pint carryout jug. I continued reading and drinking until I fell asleep.

I had a dream. The third officer of the Esmeralda, Richard Jenkins, sat in my tent and began to tell me his version of the wreck.

“The Esmeralda was an unlucky ship even before I joined her at Gravesend,” he started. “She had been stranded on Maplin Sands in the Thames Estuary by her previous captain, an easy thing to do when the owners wanted fast passages whatever the weather. Two of the crew had been sent out into the fog to seek help. They were never seen again, unless you count their cries to their shipmates during the dog watches.

The government had chartered her to transport convicted women to Australia to provide servants and wives for the settlers and freed convicts. The Esmeralda waited at Gravesend for months but too few women were sentenced to transportation. Only half full we were ordered to sail to Chatham. In Chatham the magistrates convicted almost every woman who was brought before them to be transported on the Esmeralda, no matter how trivial her crime, or even if she was innocent. The same happened in Ramsgate, in Dover, in Portsmouth and Southampton.

The Esmeralda was becoming a political scandal so we were ordered to miss every other scheduled port except Bristol. There, women had been brought from courts all over the West Country. Once loaded we would have one hundred and twenty women prisoners, five female wardresses with a male warder officer, eighteen crew and three officers.

We were going to sail on the tide on the Monday morning but on Sunday afternoon there was a demonstration and near riot in Bristol, complaining that wives, daughters and sweethearts were being unjustly convicted to make up the Esmeralda’s cargo. It was probably true. The local magistrates had to call out the militia to stop the rioters who were in the docks and very close to the Esmeralda. They ordered our captain to leave at once even though the tide wasn’t ideal. We managed to clear Avonmouth just before dusk and set sail for the West, straight into a storm.

If everything had been as it should have been, we would have been able to claw our way down the Bristol Channel and out into the open sea. But the rioters had managed to pass some tools to the women prisoners. Ever since the first prisoners were brought on board at Gravesend, they had been preparing to break out of their confinement before we left English waters.

I and the Captain were off watch now that we were in the open channel. He and I had been on duty all day. I had fallen on my bunk fully dressed, too tired to change. The Mate and the quartermaster were in charge.

I don’t know how to say this, but the Captain was not alone in his cabin. He had taken a mistress, Rose, from among the prisoners, and also provided himself with a maid called Abigail, Rose’s younger sister. The Mate also had a mistress, Rose’s sister Sarah. I was considered too young and anyway my berth was too small for such indulgences even if I could have been allowed them.

Rose plied the Captain with wine to celebrate leaving England and then they made love, again and again, until the Captain was insensible with wine and exhaustion. She bound and gagged him, lashed him to his bunk, took his keys, opened the arms chest and hid pistols under her dress. She roused Sarah and Abigail and armed them as well.

In the darkness on the quarterdeck Sarah distracted the Mate. The Mate was still trying to navigate the ship, impeded by Sarah’s caresses until Rose dropped to her hands and knees behind him. Sarah pushed him backwards and all three women fell on him. Sarah smothered him with her skirt while the others tied him up.

The quartermaster was left at the wheel unaware that his officer was a helpless bundle behind him.

The three women crept to the door leading to the below deck cells. The warder was already drunk and the four women warders were asleep. Why shouldn’t they be? They were out at sea and the women were locked in their cells for the night.

Sarah took the keys from the hook beside the warder and all three crept downwards. Quietly they released all the hundred plus women prisoners who made their way up to the warders’ area. The warder and the women warders were overpowered, gagged and bound with long strips of cloth that the women had made on the voyage so far, and taken down to a cell to be locked in.

“What of the crew?” you might ask. What were they doing while the women captured the ship?

The quartermaster was faced by several women wielding pistols. When he protested that the ship was in danger he was told to keep quiet. He wouldn’t, so he too was overpowered and tied in a bundle on the quarterdeck.

The crew were busy aloft, reefing the sails down against the increasing storm. Whatever was happening on deck wasn’t important. A cannon shot might have alerted them but nothing less.

As each member of the crew regained the deck he was swamped by female bodies, gagged swiftly, carried below decks and lashed tightly into a hammock before the hammock was slung from the deck beams. Very soon all eighteen crew were silently struggling in their enveloping hammocks, helplessly swinging with the ship’s movements.

I was still asleep while this was happening. I had slumped on my bunk fully clothed, too tired to even shed my shoes.

I was the women’s last target. My cabin door burst open. I didn’t have time to sit up before a woman’s body slammed into me. Another woman pressed a folded cloth over my mouth while a third wrapped me inside my bedding with coils of thick cord. She had mummified me before I had a chance to struggle.

“Richard!” Rose hissed into my ear. “The ship is ours. Everyone else is captured. We want you to tell us what to do to get to a port in Wales or Ireland.”

I shook my head as best I could within their grasping arms.

“You will!” Rose ordered. “Or this will suffer.”

Her hand grabbed through the blanket over my sex and squeezed hard. I winced. I knew that she had been controlling my Captain by her sexual demands. Would I be her next victim?

“Bring him on deck,” Rose ordered.

I was lifted and carried out to the ship’s wheel. I was horrified to see it turning idly. The Bristol Channel in a storm is no place for a ship not under command. As far as I could through the women holding me I looked for any lights, loom of land or sea marks. There were none.

The cloth was lifted from my face.

“Well?” Rose asked. “Are you…”

“I’ll do anything! “ I retorted. “We’re all in real danger. Now! This part of the Bristol Channel wrecks many ships and I don’t know exactly where we are. We must get…”

“OK, Richard,” Rose said calmly. “I get the message. Just get us out of here.”

She signalled to the women holding me. They stood me up, cut the cords binding me inside the blanket and propped me against the ship’s wheel.

“Can any of you see anything?” I asked desperately. “Anything, anywhere?”

The women went to the rails. I tried to bring the helm under control.

“Nothing.”


The darkness, rain and wind blocked our view more than a few yards from the ship. I brought the ship’s head around to West South West that ought to be a safe course. The sails flapped. I had to direct women to haul on lines to tighten the canvas so that we had steerage way. Gradually we began to move through the water under control.

“I can hear waves breaking!” came a shout from the bows. Rose ran forward and then rushed back to me.

“The waves are close on our right hand side…”

“Starboard bow,” I corrected. I swung the wheel to turn to port. Then we struck hard on what I knew later were Iestyn’s Rocks only slightly above the water. The foremast went over the bow on the first impact, taking some of the women with it.

I felt the ship’s motion cease. We were hard and fast on those rocks, immovable. The sea was breaking against our port side but I thought we would be safe until the tide dropped and dawn came. I was wrong. I sent a woman to check the chronometer. It was nearly dawn. That meant that the tide was rising and still had a long way to come. The ship would try to float but I was sure she was too badly holed. Even if she did float off the rocks, she would sink in deeper water.

“Rose!” I shouted. “We need the crew – now!”

She ran towards me.

“Why? We can’t risk being recaptured!”

“We’re on the rocks. The Esmeralda won’t survive long. We have to launch the boats before the tide rises much further. You women can’t do that in this weather. Even the crew will find it difficult, but we’ll all drown if we don’t leave soon.”

Rose was faced with protests from some of the women but her orders were obeyed. All eighteen seamen, still bundled in their hammocks, were brought to the quarterdeck. The false dawn was just revealing shapes of the rigging.

“Untie them!” I ordered.

There was some hesitation. Rose nodded. The seamen and quartermaster were released. Quickly I explained our predicament and that we needed to abandon ship in the boats within the next quarter of an hour or we would sink with the Esmeralda. Any boats launched should head Northwards towards South Wales and ride with the rising tide until they reached a safe landing place – if they could.

Rose split the women into groups for each of the larger boats. They could only be launched on the starboard side because the storm was beating on our port side. Three of the boats with most of the women and all the sailors were away quickly. They were swept up the Bristol Channel and soon out of our sight.

The other boats were being woman and manhandled across the deck from port to starboard. I was still standing ahead of the useless ship’s wheel directing the movement of the boats. Rose and Sarah were standing either side of me. Both had pistols aimed at my body.

“What are you going to do about the warders and the officers?” I asked.

“Leave them!” Rose snorted.

“You can’t do that,” I retorted. “That would be murder. If caught, you would hang.”

“He’s right,” Sarah said quietly. “We have to give them a chance to live.”

Rose slumped her shoulders.

“How? We can’t risk being recaptured.”

“Release the ship’s officers. Leave them a small boat and they can release the warders when we have left.”

“We?” Rose asked. “Who are we?”

“If you are going to survive,” I said calmly, “you need me. Getting a boat ashore in this storm isn’t going to be easy. I think less than half of us will live to see the end of today. I intend to be one of them.”

“Sarah?” Rose said. “Untie the two here and give them the keys of the cells just before we get in our boat with Richard.”

Sarah handed her pistol to Rose. She untied the quartermaster and then the Mate. Rose was pointing one pistol at them as she explained, with my help, the situation we were in – on the rocks, about to sink, with the Captain and warders confined below. The Mate understood that I was acting under duress.

The final large boat pulled away, leaving the two smaller boats. I and the three women took the smallest. Rose and Abigail were carrying two heavy bags which were a nuisance. Rose gave the keys to the Mate just before we cast off. We pulled a few yards clear of the ship and I let the tide take us up-channel. The mate and quartermaster disappeared from the deck. I never saw nor heard of them, nor the captain and warders again. Did they leave the Esmeralda? Or sink with her? I don’t know.

I managed to raise the mast and a small triangle of sail. It was just enough to give us some steerage way, but the tide was so strong that all I could do was run with it. The storm wasn’t as fierce but all of us were baling hard to keep ourselves afloat. The cliffs to the North were dangerous. Although there were small areas of beach it was obvious that those would soon be covered by the rising tide. We needed some land that would remain dry, or an inlet.

Eventually I spotted an opening beyond a headland. I yelled at the women to get the oars out and pull. I had to shout the rhythm many times before they started to work together. Once we were inshore of the headland the tide’s effect lessened, as did the force of the wind. We grounded on a pebbly beach. We had very little energy left to pull the boat as far up the beach as possible.

There was a stone hut about fifty yards away well above the highest tide. Sarah went to see whether we could use it for shelter. She returned quickly.

“It’s obviously disused but it has a chimney. We would be dry, out of this wind, and if we could start a fire...”

I felt in my coat pocket. My small tinder box was there.

“Lead on, Ladies,” I said, “and I’ll give you a fire.”

As we stumbled along the beach we picked up pieces of driftwood. They were rain soaked but might burn if there was some dry fuel in the hut to start the fire.

There was. Some dry seaweed had blown in through the open door, and there was a small pile of wood, presumably left months ago by the hut’s owner. We had a warm fire going within a quarter of an hour. Shortly afterwards a naked man and three naked women were attempting to dry their soaked clothing on lines already strung from the roof timbers.

I ought to have been aroused by naked young females. I was just too tired.

“We are ashore, in shelter, and drying off,” Rose announced. “What now?”

“Water and food,” I replied. “We’ve left both in the boat.”

The women groaned.

“OK, Richard. You go and get it.” Sarah said.

“No!” Rose shouted. “He could just disappear. We’ll go and get it.”

“That’s what I was going to suggest,” I said. “I couldn’t carry it all.”

We had put on some of our still damp clothing. I carried the water cask. The others carried the ship’s biscuit boxes and the heavy bags.

As we approached the hut the wind began to increase and the rain started again. Once inside the rain was lashing the outside of the hut. We soaked some dry ship’s biscuits in water for a basic meal. Despite the fire we were cold. The hut’s door was facing the wind and an inadequate barrier. Rose ordered all of us into a huddle away from the draught from the door and as close to the fire as we could. I was swamped between naked female bodies. We were covered with nearly dry clothing. We tried to sleep because we were so tired.

+++

At that point I heard some sheep complaining in the next field. Richard’s shape shimmered.

“I think you’ve heard enough for tonight, Henry,” he said, his voice fading, “but relax and enjoy if you can what I experienced then...”

He disappeared from view if I had seen him at all, not dreamed of him. My body seemed to have acquired bodies around and on top of me, soft naked female flesh. My face was pressed against a pair of breasts. My erection was held between two firm legs. I drifted back into sleep worried that hearing ghosts was one thing; being smothered by them was frightening if pleasant.

+++

I felt a hand gently stroking my erection. I opened my mouth to object. A hand clamped hard across my lips.

“Abigail wants you, Richard,” a voice whispered fiercely in my ear. “Just relax and let her have you.”

Somehow I knew it was Rose whispering. I was worried. I’m not a mid 19th Century third officer Richard Jenkins. I’m a 21st Century Henry in my tent. Abigail couldn’t be really holding my erection, could she?

She was. A gentle squeeze proved that I was very effectively held by Abigail.

“She’s wanted you ever since she came aboard, Richard,” Rose said. “That’s why she and I chose you to be in our boat. Now she’s going to...”

I knew what Abigail was going to do. I gasped against Rose’s hand as I was slid into Abigail. It should be impossible but I had penetrated a very real vagina that clamped me with a soft contraction.

Rose shifted her body to bring my lips to her naked breast. As Abigail began to move up and down on me my mouth opened. Rose pushed her nipple between my lips followed by more and more of her breast.

“This is how I used to silence your captain, Richard. He was too much of a gentleman to bite me as Abigail swallowed his prick in her mouth. Just relax and enjoy as she swallows you with her other lips.”

I might not be Richard but Henry. Abigail’s lower lips and Rose’s breast were as effective on me as they must have been on Richard. I was lost in the passion of being used by two experienced young women. As Abigail’s movements became stronger Rose and Sarah pressed closer around us. Multiple hands were stroking my naked body. My own hands were pulled between legs and my fingers pushed into warm clefts. I was drowning in female flesh. Rose’s breast sank further into my mouth as I tried to gasp for air. Her fingers were protecting an airway for my nose. As Abigail’s movements turned from excited into frenzied Rose pulled her breast away to let me gulp air gratefully.

When Abigail slumped against me Rose’s breast silenced me again. Abigail might have been spent. The other two women weren’t. They were using whatever part of my body they could reach and claim to arouse themselves. Rose’s breast almost seemed a protection from their activities.

There was no way I or Richard could have satisfied three young women by our own efforts. They seemed happy to be using my or his body to satisfy themselves. I was only the object they wanted as a pleasure tool. I hadn’t ejaculated into Abigail. Despite the stimulation I was experiencing all over me I was holding back, or I was until Abigail started to move on me again. This time she brought herself to an orgasm much faster. As she reached her climax so did I. Rose felt me slump. I was vaguely aware as she persuaded Abigail and Sarah to end their sexual activities.

I slipped into sleep with a mouth still stuffed by Rose’s breast.

+++

The next morning I was woken up by the sound of a bell. It took me some time to work out that it was a church bell sounding regularly, not the ghost bell of Bell Rock. I was back as myself and alone. I felt exhausted and there was a damp patch in my sleeping bag. After breakfast I sat outside my tent with the local history book. I read all I could find about the wreck of the Esmeralda.

Apparently two boatloads had safely reached shore much further up the Severn Estuary with a couple of seamen and a dozen or so women in each. Bodies had been retrieved from the shoreline of the Severn Estuary. There was no mention the survival of Third Officer Richard Jenkins and the women with him. None of the officers or warders seemed to have survived.

Later on in the book I found that the government had pardoned, some posthumously, the women prisoners from the Esmeralda. There it was. There were two exceptions. Rose Sanders and Sarah Sanders, sisters, were considered to be the ringleaders of the mutiny and already described as incorrigible rogues.

The legend? Locals fishing at night reported hearing the Esmeralda hit Bell Rock nearly at dawn and cries from drowning women. Over the years the legend had turned the ghostly women into mermaids or sirens who could lure a man to his death.

I walked down to the beach and looked out to sea towards where Bell Rock would have been visible if it was low tide. It wasn’t. I walked along the cliff tops until I returned to the pub for their special Sunday lunch. The weather looked threatening.

“You look shattered, Henry,” Amanda said as I ordered a drink from the bar after meal time.

“I feel it too,” I replied. “I wanted a restful holiday but Bell Rock and the Esmeralda are getting in the way of rest.”

She looked quizzically at me. She might have pursued the conversation but other customers needed drinks. What could I tell her? That I was worn out servicing female ghosts? She’d think I had lost my mind. I settled myself close to the log fire and half-dozed. I needed sleep after last night but I was afraid I would be back as Richard Jenkins.

Amanda brought me a cup of coffee.

“You look as if you need this, Henry. Didn’t you sleep well?”

“I didn’t. I seemed to be living a ghost story,” I replied.

Amanda laughed at me but stopped when she saw the expression on my face. She sat down at the table.

“You’re serious, aren’t you, Henry?”

“Yes, Amanda. I was reliving the wreck of the Esmeralda, too vividly.”

I gave her a short expurgated account of last night’s dream.

“There are stories about the Esmeralda that aren’t included in the book you bought yesterday. Dad and I are descended from one of the survivors. One of my aunts did some research into our family history. Mum’s descended from a local farming family but Dad’s family were from two survivors of the Esmeralda. The aunt’s research is stuck at that point. The husband and wife told their c***dren they had survived the wreck but their names don’t fit as having been on the Esmeralda.”

“What were their names, Amanda?”

“I’d have to check. I’ve got a printout of how far the aunt’s research got. Have you got time?”

I looked out of the window at the rain pouring down.

“Plenty of time, Amanda. I’m not going anywhere in the rain and I’m more comfortable here than in my tent. But what about you? Haven’t you got work to do?”

“No, Henry. I don’t work here. If I’m here I’ll help out when Dad and Mum are busy. Mum should be back in an hour or so. One of the waitresses has gone away for a couple of days to be a bridesmaid. She’ll return Tuesday evening and I can get back to my work in Bristol. Lunch time is over. I’m not needed until about six.”

“Then I would be very pleased to look at the family history,” I said.

Amanda went to the private area of the pub. She took off her apron and left it behind the bar. What I hadn’t said was that I would be very happy to spend longer with Amanda. But for her I would have moved on days ago. If she was going back to Bristol in a couple of days I might pack my tent and see some more of South Wales.

Amanda brought a box file. She put it on the table before pouring herself a cup of coffee. She sat down and opened the box. She flipped through a folder.

“Here we are, Henry,” she said, “a copy of their marriage certificate.”

She turned it around to look closely at it.

“In 1852 Robert Jones and Anne Mary Smith married in the local church. He said he was a bachelor. She said she was a widow, maiden name Owens. Occupation? Robert said publican, part owner of this pub. Anne also said part owner. Parish? This one.”

Amanda flipped over some pages of the file. She paused over some handwriting, presumably the aunt’s notes.

“Neither of them are recorded in the 1841 or 1851 censuses anywhere. In 1851 this pub was owned by a Mr and Mrs Leigh. There were a couple of farms with their owners and some agricultural labourers, wives and c***dren. The whole community was less than fifty people. The dates and places of birth for Robert and Anne as shown in the 1861 census don’t match any records anywhere but that isn’t unusual. They didn’t have to be recorded until 1837 and both of them would have been born before then. There might have been baptism records.

But what my aunt found odd was that Anne’s previous marriage doesn’t seem to exist. Anne Mary Owens should have married a Smith after 1837 and before 1852. Before 1837 and for some years afterwards she was a c***d far too young to marry. Her husband must have died a few months before she married Robert. Her son was born three weeks after the marriage but the father is shown as Albert Smith, deceased mariner.”

Amanda moved around to sit beside me. She showed me the birth registration of Richard Jones, mother Anne Mary Jones and father Albert Smith.

“Albert Smith?” I asked. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Yes, why?”

“Have you got a copy of that local history book? Mine’s in my tent.”

“Yes. It’s behind the bar.”

Amanda went to get it. She passed it to me. I flipped through it. I was right.

“Look,” I said with my finger on the passage.

“Albert Smith, mate.” Amanda read out.

“He was the mate of the Esmeralda and one of those lost in the shipwreck.”

“Is that the connection my family tradition is about? No. It can’t be. We’re not descended from Richard but from his younger half-brother. Richard died in c***dhood, I think.”

Amanda scanned the file again.

“Yes. Richard died at less than two years old. But there is still no record of a marriage of Anne Mary before she married Robert. I think... Yes, here’s the note. Albert Smith died unmarried. The captain of the Esmeralda was a widower with no c***dren.”

I took the book back and flipped to the page listing those lost and those surviving on the Esmeralda.

“No Anne Mary. She wasn’t on the Esmeralda. Neither was Robert Jones.”

“I know that, Henry. That was one of the first things my father looked at when the book was first published. Robert and Anne weren’t on the ship. All the survivors had been accounted for. Rose and Sarah Sanders weren’t listed among the survivors. It was assumed that they, along with all the officers, were drowned. They are shown in the list as ‘missing presumed drowned’, and not in the list of recovered bodies.”

While Amanda was checking the lists in the local history book I was looking at the printout of the 1861 census showing those at the pub. Robert was at the bottom of one page as ‘Head of the Household and part owner”. Anne was at the top of the next page which had been folded in the plastic leaf to show her immediately below him. I pulled out the sheet with Anne’s name on. There were two women’s names below hers and all three were recorded as ‘part owner’.

“Amanda!” I said abruptly. “Look at this.”

“At what? The 1861 Census? So?”

“There are two women as well as Anne. All are shown as part owners. Do you think...?”

“They are survivors of the Esmeralda? The names don’t look right. You read them out. I’ll check against the list for the Esmeralda.”

They didn’t match. None of them matched.

“It must have been a very unusual situation to have four part owners then, particularly as three were women,” Amanda said. “What’s this? The other two are marked FS. What’s that?”

“Femme Sole I think I remember,” I said. “If I’m right it means a single woman supporting herself financially. It’s the female equivalent of gentleman of private means.”

“That’s not unusual in Wales,” Amanda retorted. “Welsh women could hold property in their own right, unlike in England.”

“But three women part –owning a pub with a man must have been unusual, surely?”

“I suppose so...” Amanda said slowly.

“But if they were survivors of the female prisoners they would have changed their names,” I suggested. “Rose and Sarah Sanders were excluded from the pardon. There was Abigail... And of course Richard Jenkins, third officer, who told me he took a boat with the last of the women.”

I looked at the census printout again. Robert Jones married to Anne Mary Smith née Owens with three sons and two daughters. The other women were Ruth and Susan Simpson, single sisters. But Ruth and Susan were also shown with c***dren. The community was a total of eighty people.

“I wonder,” I said aloud, “Richard Jenkins could have become Robert Jones; Rose and Sarah Sanders could have become Ruth and Susan Simpson; and Abigail Sanders could be Anne Smith... They kept the initials... And of course! Robert and Anne’s son was called Richard. If Richard’s father’s real name was Richard Jenkins not Robert Jones...”

“You would need women on the Esmeralda with the initials R S, S S and A S?” Amanda suggested flicking through the book to find the names of the women lost from the Esmeralda whose bodies were not recovered.

“Here they are! Rose, Sarah and Abigail Sanders. They must have taken the names Ruth, Susan and Anne.”

“And Smith, Owens and Simpson are common names,” I added.

“I wonder,” Amanda said, “what the women were convicted for? There’s a list of all the sentences in an appendix.”

She flipped to the back of the book. I hadn’t looked at the appendices apart from the lists of survivors, found dead and the missing.

“Here they are. Rose, Sarah and Abigail. Rose and Sarah convicted of manslaughter; Abigail for helping offenders. Rose and Sarah claimed they fought off a man who attacked them. He died from hitting his head against a wall. Abigail gave her sisters a false alibi. All the sentences of those transported on the Esmeralda were re-examined in an enquiry after the wreck and doubt because of doubts expressed about the validity of many of the convictions.

Rose, Sarah and Abigail? It says that if they had a competent lawyer they might not have been convicted. The man who attacked Rose and Sarah had previous jail sentences for attacking women. However Rose and Sarah had previous convictions for petty theft. That counted against them.

The convictions of many of the other women were considered unsound, particularly the later assizes when the Esmeralda had left London.”

As Amanda was talking I was idly turning over some of her aunt’s notes. Another handwritten item attracted my attention. It was a list of questions her aunt had written. One was ‘Robert and the women had no other male staff. How did they manage the heavy work of running a pub?’

“They were strong and fit,” I blurted out.

“What? What are you talking about, Henry?” Amanda retorted.

I showed her the aunt’s question.

“The women were strong and fit,” I repeated.

“And how do you know that?”

I blushed. Amanda giggled.

“I thought you were being slightly evasive with your account of that dream. There was more, wasn’t there?”

I blushed again.

“Come on, Henry. Out with it. What was the rest of the dream?”

I looked around the pub. There were still a few customers. None had been paying attention to us but I didn’t want to discuss that dream in a public place. Amanda noticed.

“OK,” she said, looking out of the window, “It’s stopped raining. Can we continue in your tent? I’d like to see how comfortable you are in there.”

“I would be delighted to show you,” I replied, “It would be more private.”

“And your account needs privacy, Henry?”

“Yes, Amanda, it does.”

“OK. I’ll check with Dad and Mum and be with you in a few minutes.”

+++

A quarter of an hour later Amanda arrived in the tent just as I finished making coffee for us.

“The barmaid has returned early from the wedding,” she said. “She had a row with her boyfriend about going on her own while he was working. She decided that her boyfriend was more important than catching up with old friends. She did that at the reception and felt that two more days weren’t worth annoying the boyfriend. She’s on duty tonight and tomorrow. I’m covering for her tomorrow night so she and the boyfriend can have an evening together.”

Although I had a small folding stool we were sitting side by side on my sleeping bag. We had nearly finished the coffee when the rain returned.

“Oh dear,” Amanda said, “I’ll get wet going back to the pub.”

“No need to,” I replied. “There’s a folding umbrella you could use.”

“But you haven’t told me the interesting part of your dream about the Esmeralda yet. Are you still embarrassed by it, Henry?”

“Yes.”

“I’m broad minded and it was just a dream, wasn’t it?”

“It didn’t feel like a dream, Amanda. I seemed to be experiencing what Richard had.”

Amanda snuggled next to me.

“You can whisper it in my ear,” she said before kissing me on the cheek.

I started with what she already knew – the beginning of the Esmeralda’s voyage from Bristol. When I got to the part where Third Officer Richard Jenkins was overpowered by the women and tied up in his bedding Amanda stopped me.

“If the cabin was as small as Richard said it was, that could have been difficult to do.”

“With several women getting to him while he was asleep, I wouldn’t have thought so,” I replied.

“I wonder,” Amanda said. “Get into your sleeping bag and we’ll see.”

That was an order. I hoped it might lead to something interesting so I shed my boots and slid myself into my sleeping bag. Amanda zipped it up, pulling the zip higher than I would normally do. She threw herself on me, grabbed the sleeping bag’s hood and pulled the draw cord. It tightened around my head.

“Wha...?” I started to protest.

Amanda’s kiss stopped me. I was helpless as she kissed me again and again. She fed a loop of the draw cord through the zip’s slider before knotting it. She climbed on top of the sleeping bag, paused and looked at me.

“I can see that tying a man up has possibilities,” she said before kissing me again.

“And you are slow, Henry,” Amanda continued. “I’ve wanted to kiss you, or be kissed by you, for days.”

Any response I might have made was stopped by another kiss. Amanda’s face was inches in front of mine. I was aware that my erection was building as her body pressed through the sleeping bag.

“Now I’m comfortable, and you’re my prisoner, like Richard Jenkins was, you can continue with the ghost story, Henry.”

I did, interrupted by a few kisses. I was beginning to notice that the real Amanda and the ghostly Abigail seemed remarkably similar. If Abigail/Anne was actually Amanda’s ancestor that might explain it.

When I started to tell Amanda about the four of us naked in the hut she became excited. She kept prompting me. When I started to tell about Abigail wanting me inside her, Amanda’s body moved down to press on my erection through the sleeping bag. At the point of Rose’s hand gagging me, Amanda briefly stopped my story with her own hand.

At the point in my account when Rose pushed her naked breast in my mouth Amanda’s hand stopped me again.

“I’m not doing that, Henry. Not yet. But...”

Amanda lifted her top and pressed her bra covered breast over my face. She wrapped an arm behind my hooded head. She held her breast tight across my face covering my mouth and nose. I couldn’t breathe for the half minute that Amanda was smothering me. She released the pressure before pulling back a few inches.

“That’s as far as I’ll go.” Amanda said. “Now...”

I finished the story of last night’s dream.

“You can’t leave it there, Henry,” Amanda said. “What happened next?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe the dream will continue tonight?”

“OK. I’ll leave you to dream.”

Amanda climbed off me and started to unfasten the tent door.

“Hey!” I exclaimed. “You can’t leave me like this. I can’t get out.”

“You’re my prisoner, Henry,” Amanda said. “If I let you out it will only be on parole.”

“On parole?”

“Yes. You have to take me out tomorrow. If not? I’ll leave you tied up until morning.”

“I would be delighted to take you out tomorrow, Amanda,” I replied. “But I’d like to be free for dinner tonight.”

Amanda’s hands fumbled at the draw cord.

“Tonight you’re having dinner with me. I’m off duty.”

+++

That evening we talked about ourselves, not the Esmeralda, and found our similarities a cause for frequent laughter. Amanda is a junior finance officer in a local council office in Bristol. I’m a recently qualified accountant in an office also in Bristol. Amanda is still studying for her local government qualifications. I completed and passed my accountant’s qualification last year.

After the meal we went into her parents’ private sitting room. Amanda went upstairs to bring down her current course details and the homework she had to finish before she would be back at work on Wednesday. We spent an hour with our heads close together doing that homework. I thought some of the terminology was weird, or had very different meanings from the same terms used by a normal accountant. Between us we worked out what the differences were, and more importantly WHY they were different. The homework that might have taken Amanda three or more hours was finished in one.

As we worked together I could feel that there was growing respect between us for the other’s ability and intelligence. We were appreciating each other as individuals, not just man and woman. I wanted to have more time with Amanda, not just the day out tomorrow.

At one point during our work on the homework Amanda’s mother walked through the sitting room. We were concentrating so hard that we hardly noticed her. As she came back she said ‘Hello Henry’. We looked up, startled.

“Hello, Mrs Jones,” I replied almost as she had left the room.

Amanda went upstairs to go to bed about ten o’clock. She had been working late each evening, finishing about two a.m. She wanted to sleep before our outing tomorrow. We had agreed to start at ten a.m. She kissed me and pushed me out towards the public area of the bar.

I bought a pint of bitter. Mrs Jones pulled it for me. About a quarter of an hour later the bar was empty. She came and sat down beside me.

“Can I have a word, Henry?” she asked.

“Of course,” I replied.

“Don’t tell Amanda.”

I nodded. Don’t tell Amanda what? I thought.

“You seem to be getting on well with her, Henry. Please be careful. Amanda was badly hurt very recently. That’s one of the reasons why she came home to us. Her boyfriend for the last six months was a lecturer at the college she goes to part time. He wasn’t teaching her otherwise he would be in more trouble. He’s been transferred to a college in Exeter, partly because of his relationship with Amanda, but also because of inappropriate activity with two other female students at the same time. Amanda and the other two are all over twenty-one years old or...”

I nodded again. I could appreciate Mrs Jones’ concern.

“That bastard is married and his wife was looking after their young son at home in Exeter. Their boy had been in hospital after a serious cycle accident. Instead of going home at weekends to help his wife he was having sex with three students.”

“Ouch” I said.

“I’d have said something worse but ouch will do. When he was found out Amanda took it very badly. She had thought that marriage was possible. So did the other two. How he kept up the deception with three women? He must have had a smooth line of talk and be an accomplished liar...”

“And an arsehole,” I added.

Mrs Jones nodded.

“Amanda is vulnerable at present. She obviously likes you but please be careful with her. Please?”

“Of course I will be. I like her too. I’d like to see more of her. We seem to like the same things and our studies are complementary. But it’s too soon to say yet whether we will become more than friends. Tomorrow might be critical. A day together instead of an hour or two...”

“...in your tent.”

Mrs Jones was obviously concerned about Amanda having been in the tent with me. I laughed.

“Amanda made sure I wasn’t in a position to DO anything,” I said. “She bundled me up in my sleeping bag and sat on me.”

Mrs Jones giggled. She sounded just like Amanda.

“Good for her,” she said. “That sounds like a normal Amanda. She’s run most of the men she’s been out with – until they ran away. How would you react to being ordered around by Amanda?”

“I might enjoy it, if she’s as gentle with me as she’s been up to now. But I’ll have to wait and see whether she wants me and whether we will have a relationship or not. I’d like it if she becomes like her mother.”

What I might have said next was stopped by Mrs Jones kissing me.

“Thank you, Henry. Be careful. I run my husband and this pub. Amanda would be as demanding. Off you go to your lonely tent...”

Lonely tent? If the ghosts from the Esmeralda returned my tent would feel crowded, not lonely.

Mrs Jones kissed me again at the doorway.

+++

In my tent I went to sleep in minutes. It seemed that I was back in the dream almost at once.

I was back in that cold hut but it was still daylight. Abigail was pounding up and down on my again. But something had changed. Abigail seemed more like Amanda than my previous dream, and she was obviously pregnant. Why hadn’t I noticed her bump before? On board the Esmeralda I had barely seen Abigail and she had been fully dressed. This morning I had been swamped by three naked women with Rose’s breast and shoulders in my line of vision. But Abigail was pregnant, not that it seemed to diminish her obvious enjoyment.

I was vaguely aware that Abigail and I were alone in the hut and the door was ajar. Abigail reached her climax shortly before I did. She slumped across me. I wrapped my arms around her body as we rested. I closed my eyes very aware that I had a desirable woman on me.

It must have been a quarter of an hour later before Rose and Sarah returned.

“Abigail, Richard, we have some good and bad news for you,” Rose said.

I peered at her.

“The bad news is that the boat has gone. We didn’t pull it up the beach far enough.”

I was relieved. The boat could link us to the Esmeralda and I was with three escaped felons.

“The good news? We’re on the mainland, not an island. There’s a faint path leading up the valley beside a small stream. We didn’t go far but there are no houses or buildings for at least half a mile inland. The path must go somewhere. We ought to find out where before it gets dark again.”

“I agree,” I said blearily. “We need more food than ship’s biscuits that have been lying around for years. We ought to get away from the coast before people start hunting us.”

“Us?” Abigail queried. “They might be hunting escaped women prisoners, but not you.”

“Me too,” I replied, “As far as anyone knows I helped you to escape. Unless the officers survived to say I was threatened by your pistols, I’m an accomplice. I doubt they would have survived. We were very lucky to reach land.”

“Oh,” Sarah said. “I didn’t realise we had implicated you, but we have, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” I said. “My career as a ship’s officer is as wrecked as the Esmeralda, and I can’t keep my name either. Nor can you.”

“Changing our names? That’s easily done. No one here will know who we are,” Rose said.

As Abigail and I got dressed there was a discussion about what names we should take. We ought to have our names settled before we met anyone.

I, as Henry, knew what names they had taken. I, as Richard, was part of the discussion.

“Oh blast!” I said suddenly.

“What is it, Richard, sorry, Robert?” Abigail/Anne asked.

“If we are going to be other people we need to earn a living. I can’t be a dead ship’s officer, and as Robert I don’t have the paperwork to be a ship’s officer.”

I felt in my trouser pocket and produced the pitifully few coins. I counted them carefully.

“Seven shillings and five pence three farthings isn’t going to go far,” I said ruefully.

Sarah/Susan and Rose/Ruth laughed at me.

“I’m serious,” I said. “That’s all the money I’ve got...”

“But not all we’ve got,” Susan answered. “Remember the heavy bags we took in the boat? We took the ship’s payroll, all of it to pay the crew, the warders, the officers – everybody. We haven’t counted it but...”

“That’s theft!” I protested.

“Who knows that it didn’t go down with the Esmeralda?” Susan retorted. “Money doesn’t tell tales.”

Before we set off to walk up the path Ruth opened the smaller one of the bags. There were hundreds of coins in it and many of them were guineas. She put a handful of coins into her skirt pocket. We hid both bags carefully.

The path followed the stream, gradually climbing up the valley. After two miles we could see a church tower in the distance and a smoking chimney halfway between that church and us. The chimney was at a crossroads between the path that had turned into a poor quality road, and another road which was nearly as badly surfaced. There was little sign that either had much use.

The chimney was on a public house. It was a largish building that had obviously seen better days in the distant past. The roof was sagging and had missing tiles. Some windows were broken. Only part of it looked occupied. There were stacks of tiles piled against a garden wall and other building materials obviously unused. We walked in with some unease. I had taken my jacket off and was carrying it folded because it identified me as a ship’s officer. It didn’t look like a place that would accept women. It didn’t look welcoming for anyone.

There was an elderly woman sitting in front of the smoking fire. She was wearing black clothing. She looked up as we entered. Her face was lined. Her expression was sad.

“Can I help you?” she said.

Her tone suggested that helping anyone or even herself would be a real effort.

“We’re looking for somewhere to stay and something to eat,” I said without much hope.

“Stay? This hostelry has rooms but most aren’t waterproof. There’s a large room with six beds and a small room with two that don’t leak – yet.”

“That would do,” Ruth said before I could answer. “The large room for we women and the smaller one for him. Food?”

“I have food, too much food. It was for my husband’s funeral feast but the neighbours brought far too much for the few mourners.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I started to say.

“I’m not,” she retorted. “This place broke him and us. We bought it because the road was going to be turnpiked. We would have had a good passing trade. We borrowed money to improve the building. But the turnpike never happened. The trust’s treasurer ran off with the money. Getting the materials here down the old road was too expensive. We borrowed more for the carters. But we had little income and now the bank will throw me out next month. The doctor said Jess died of pneumonia. He didn’t. This place broke his heart.”

We expressed our sympathy. Eventually the three women helped the old lady to prepare a meal for the five of us. The old lady brightened up when she had eaten.

“I’ll go and stay with my daughter and her husband. I can help to look after the grandc***dren but I would have liked not to be a financial burden.”

“How much do you owe the bank?” Susan asked.

Anne and Ruth winced. That was an embarrassing question. The old woman noticed their reaction.

“I don’t mind telling you strangers. Everyone within ten miles knows the mess I’m in. I owe forty guineas. In the last month the takings have been less than half a guinea. Jess and I paid fifty guineas for the buildings and the good will. We had borrowed thirty guineas but now the bank says we...” she corrected herself, “...I owe them forty. They’ll take possession in three weeks time unless I have paid them forty guineas by the next quarter day. That’s Michaelmass on September 29th.”

+++

Over the next few hours we went back to the seashore hut and retrieved the bags of coins. We brought the box of ship’s biscuit and the water barrel. We left them in a collapsing outhouse. We had left no trace in the hut of our presence except we had replaced the wood we had used on the fire with some more driftwood. It was wet from the rain but would dry eventually.

Ruth had paid the old lady for our food and rooms, a week in advance. She had also persuaded her to sell us some of the clothing left by her husband and some women’s clothing that had belonged to the inn servant girls when they had servants. We were given the use of the best parlour. I lit a fire in there.

The old lady seemed slightly happier by the evening. The three women had dressed themselves in the servants’ clothing. I was wearing some of the husband’s old clothes. Our clothes would be washed tomorrow morning and hung out to dry if the weather improved.

We talked about what story we would tell the old lady to account for our arrival. We couldn’t agree what that story would be but it didn’t matter. She didn’t ask so we told her no lies.

That night the women and I slept in our separate rooms. We didn’t want to embarrass the old lady. We had discussed the possibility that the inn offered. We could afford to pay off the bank and probably buy the building. It would be a base while the hue and cry for the escaped prisoners from the Esmeralda were being hunted. Local innkeepers wouldn’t be suspected of being fugitives.

+++

I as Henry was finding this dream complicated. As Richard Jenkins now Robert Jones I had to remember that Abigail had become Anne Smith; Sarah and Rose had remained sisters but become Susan and Ruth Simpson. My brain was whirling as the dream ended with me sleeping alone on an uncomfortable bed in a ramshackle Inn. What I did know was that Inn, vastly improved, was now the one run by Amanda’s parents.

+++

Next morning I went to the pub shortly before ten am to collect Amanda for our day out. I had no idea where we were going or what we would do. I thought Amanda would know the locality far better than I did. Whatever she wanted to do? I’d agree. I walked in through the back door because the pub wasn’t yet open to the public. Amanda’s mother met me. She hugged and kissed me. That was a surprise.

“Amanda will be down in a few minutes, Henry. Coffee while you wait?”

“Yes please,” I replied.

“Amanda likes you,” Mrs Jones said. “I’m not surprised. So do I.”

I had just finished the coffee when Amanda appeared.

“Where do you want us to go today?” I asked.

“How about starting at The Mumbles and then the Gower?” Amanda suggested.

“OK with me,” I said. “I might need directions at first.”

“No Sat Nav?” Amanda asked.

“I use maps most of the time. I have Sat Nav on the company car but not on my own,” I answered.

“OK, Henry. It’s not difficult except getting to the main road.”

+++

As I drove I told Amanda about last night’s dream. It was obvious where it was going. The Esmeralda survivors would pay off the bank and buy the Inn from the old lady. Richard/Robert would marry Abigail/Anne before her baby was born. How that would happen didn’t really matter. I had the connection between the Esmeralda, the 1852 marriage and the 1861 census. It might be just a realistic dream but the details fitted. Mr Jones and Amanda would be descendants of Richard Jenkins and Abigail Sanders. The more I dreamed about Abigail/Anne the more she looked like the Amanda Jones now sitting beside me.

We enjoyed ourselves that day. The weather was kind. We ate in a restaurant at The Mumbles and walked on a couple of Gower beaches hand in hand. We drove back to the public house owned by Amanda’s parents in a comfortable silence.

Amanda and I ate our evening meal together in her parents’ private sitting room. It was late in the evening. As I was saying good night to Amanda she stopped kissing me and looked closely at my face.

“There’s something I have to tell you, Henry,” Amanda said. “I haven’t told my parents. I don’t know how to.”

I didn’t know what she was trying to say but it was obviously something important to her. I should have guessed after her mother’s warning to me.

“I had a boyfriend at my part-time classes. He was a lecturer on another course. I thought we were going to get married but...”

Amanda’s face crumpled. I opened my arms and hugged her. She continued to speak, muffled against my shoulder.

“The bastard was already married with a son. He was cheating on his wife, and even cheating on me with two other students at the same time. The college management found out. I don’t know how but they sent him away, back to his wife. The student counsellor told me and the other two women AFTER he had gone. I had loved him. He was just using me like his private unpaid whore. Using us. All three of us. And now?”

Amanda pulled her face away from my shoulder and looked at me.

“Now? I’m pregnant. Not only am I pregnant but I’ve been ignoring the obvious signs until it’s too late to do anything about it. I’m going to have a baby, that bastard’s baby, and he’s ruined my life. Of course I can get him to pay maintenance but I’m going to be an unmarried mother just when I thought my career was going to take off. What’s the point of finishing my qualifications when I’m going to be dealing with nappies, not numbers?”

What could I say? I said nothing just hugged her close and kissed the top of her head.

“I wish... I wish... I wish I’d met you, Henry, before him. Now he’s ruined my chance with you before we had really begun to know each other.”

“He hasn’t...” I said impulsively. “Amanda is still Amanda. She’s the person I’ve been staying here for. Amanda is the person I want to see more of, even when my holiday is over and we’re the other side of the Bristol Channel. It’s still too soon to say what will happen between us. We’ve known each other for no more than a few days. I want weeks, months of Amanda...”

“Even an Amanda with a growing bump?”

“Yes, Amanda.”

Her lips stopped me saying anything else. It was several minutes before she spoke again.

“Can you come with me now? I need to tell my parents. I need your support while I tell them. Mum will be shocked. Dad will be murderous. They might be more restrained if you’re with me.”

I wasn’t sure but if that’s what Amanda wanted, I’d go with her.

She was wrong about her parents. Her mother already knew and had told Mr Jones. They had been waiting for Amanda to tell them. A daughter can’t hide a pregnancy from her mother that long. Mrs Jones even had made a reasonable estimate of the due date. Mum and daughter hugged as Amanda cried. I felt that I shouldn’t be there at such a significant moment for the Jones family until Mrs Jones needed a hug from me as Amanda and her father cuddled each other.

I was able to get away back to my tent about ten minutes later. Tomorrow Amanda and I could talk about what happens when she and I go back to work. Tonight? Tonight I need to sleep, perhaps to dream of a demanding and pregnant Abigail, now called Anne, who looks very like Amanda.

+++

Richard Jenkins, now Robert Jones, appeared in my dream almost as he had done the first time. Unlike the bedraggled third officer wearing creased salt-stained clothing and with long wet hair and a full beard, he now looked like a middle class civilian in a reasonable jacket. He was clean shaven and his hair was cut short, very short for the period.

“After a couple of days staying at the Inn,” Robert started, “we decided that we would buy out Mrs Leigh. Although the prospects for an income from trade looked poor, we had so much money we didn’t really need an income. On the next market day at the local town Mrs Leigh and I went with a local farmer taking his produce to market.

As you can see, I had changed my appearance. Ruth decided we should make ourselves as unlike female convicts and a ship’s officer as we could. Anne cut my hair. The women cut their hair shorter too. On the Esmeralda their hair had just been left. By the time they reached Australia their hair would have been very long. I shaved my beard off. That was a mistake. My face was weather beaten where the beard hadn’t been, and very pale where the beard have covered it. Susan made up some concoction to make the colour contrast less obvious just while I was in town.

Mrs Leigh and I went into the bank. The manager was surprised to see her, gave his condolences on the loss of her husband, and took us into his office. He was obviously pleased when I produced the money to pay off the loan. His wife took Mrs Leigh to their private quarters to make tea and freshen up after the journey while the manager and I smoked cigars.

“I am very relieved that loan has been repaid, Mr Jones,” he said. “I was very worried about it. It was one of our larger outstanding loans. If we had taken over the Inn we were unlikely to be able to sell it. Or maybe not. There is a rumour that the turnpike road improvement might be revived. Even so that won’t happen for several years. If and when it does? The Inn might be what Mr and Mrs Leigh wanted it to be – a useful staging post on a good road.”

“It needs major repairs,” I said, “but the materials are already there. I... Sorry, we, will need reasonable workmen but I think it could be sound in a couple of years.”

“Do I assume you will be running the Inn, Mr Jones?”

“Running it? No. We are buying it from Mrs Leigh. We won’t reopen it as an Inn until it is fit for purpose.”

“I wish you good fortune with it, but...” The bank manager stopped.

“But?” I queried.

“But this bank would not be in a position to help. We are pleased that our loan ended so well. Until that road is improved we wouldn’t be able to advance any money...”

“No need, Sir,” I interrupted. “We have enough capital. Three of us are fortunate heirs of a deceased Scottish gentleman. I have independent means. We can finance the work ourselves, thank you.”

Later that day Mrs Leigh and I visited her lawyers. Although her husband’s will was still being executed she and her lawyers agreed to sell the Inn to the four of us for hard cash. I paid forty guineas on top of the forty to redeem the loan. But we had bought more than the Inn. When Mr and Mrs Leigh bought the Inn for fifty guineas they had also bought other parcels of land around the Inn for another ten guineas. That land was included in our purchase from Mrs Leigh and Mr Leigh’s estate. It would take about three months for all the legalities to be completed but we could take possession from now, today.

I walked Mrs Leigh to her daughter’s house, carrying a cloth bag with her immediate needs. Just before we arrived I had persuaded Mrs Leigh to take five guineas as ‘rent’ until the legal transfer was completed. She was reluctant but delighted to be arriving at her daughter’s house as a woman with money in her purse. Once the sale of the Inn and land had been completed she would be self-sufficient and able to help her daughter and grandc***dren financially. I agreed to get the women at the Inn to bundle up Mrs Leigh’s possessions and send them with the farmer’s cart on next market day. I left mother and daughter together and returned to the Inn on the empty farmer’s cart. He and I were pleased with our day’s transactions.

While I had been away the three women had been cleaning and tidying the Inn. Mr and Mrs Leigh had stopped taking care of the property for months. Just cleaning dirt from the windows had made the useable parts of the building seem much lighter inside. But they had also shown how much rubbish and debris was s**ttered around.

While they took a tea break Ruth and Susan had counted the money taken from the Esmeralda. We had thousands of guineas in mixed old coinage, not new coins that could be traced. They kept the equivalent of two hundred guineas for our living expenses for the next couple of years, and had found an old iron bound strong box to put the rest in. They wanted me to hide it somewhere inside the Inn, safe from thieves but accessible if we really needed it.”

Richard/Robert looked at me.

“Henry? You like Amanda, don’t you?”

I felt silly answering a dream but I said ‘yes’.

“Would you marry her? She needs a father for her baby.”

“I think so, Robert. It’s too soon to say.”

“Have you wondered why you are having this dream and not Amanda or her mother?”

I had to think before answering.

“I suppose I have.”

Robert laughed.

“What you don’t know, Henry, is that I’m one of YOUR ancestors too. Amanda is descended from my first son with Anne. You are descended from our first daughter. That’s why I and the others can appear in your dream. When Abigail/Anne was riding you, she was riding her several times great grandson. If you do your family history on your mother’s line you’ll find Anne Jones, formerly Smith née Owens.”

“Oh.” What else could I say?

+++

Robert went on to explain how he and Anne married. Anne’s baby, actually the son of the Esmeralda’s mate Albert Smith, died of a fever age two. Richard and Anne went on to have c***dren. About three months after the Inn sale had been completed Robert met two men at the crossroads beside the Inn. They were tired and hungry. Robert recognised them as seamen. They explained that they had left Cardiff to avoid a press gang. They were walking towards any port that might take them to Ireland.

Robert took them in to the Inn and the women fed them. A few questions established that John had been a carpenter’s mate and Silas had been an apprentice served blacksmith when they had been first press ganged into the Royal Navy. As competent seaman with a trade they were vulnerable to being pressed again.

It didn’t take long for the women to decide that John and Silas could help repair the Inn for wages. As they worked over the next few months Susan decided she wanted John in her bed; Ruth took Silas.

Two years later some of the Inn’s outbuildings were Silas’ forge and John’s carpenter’s shop. At first they were working only on the Inn but gradually they picked up work from the surrounding farms.

Four years after the purchase of the Inn the road was finally improved and travellers began to use it. Gradually the Inn became profitable. The three women had c***dren to look after. Some of the farmer’s daughters worked in the Inn but lived at home.

The land they had bought included the whole valley down to the sea and the fisherman’s hut but a neighbouring landowner had a right of way down the path. Together with him the path was improved to a basic road. Sand and stone from the beach helped with the repairs to the Inn.

“I’ll end the story there, Henry.” Robert said. “If you want to know more the records exist of births, deaths, marriages and property transactions. But now my Anne wants you for the last time...”

As he stopped speaking and gradually faded I seemed to be naked with Anne who had been Abigail straddling my erection. I was soon lost in the fury of our coupling as she rode me. I was vaguely uneasy that my several times great-grandmother was bouncing up and down on me but it was a dream, wasn’t it?

+++

That was not my last dream about the survivors of the Esmeralda. Two days later I was back at work but seeing Amanda several times a week.

Two months later Amanda and I were engaged with her parents’ willing approval. She was seven months pregnant. We had booked a quiet Registry Office wedding for three weeks time. Four days before the wedding I was attending a lecture at the college Amanda had been attending in Bristol. It was an open lecture that Amanda had wanted to go too but she was too tired. I had gone for her and was taking extensive notes. As requested we had all turned off our phones, in fact I had left mine in my car. The lecturer had finished and was taking questions when I suddenly heard Robert Jones’ voice loud in my head.

“Amanda needs you NOW!” He seemed to shout at me.

I didn’t think. I gathered up my papers and ran out of the room. A few people looked at me oddly as I went.

I drove to Amanda’s flat and let myself in with the key she had given me. I found her in the kitchen leaning against a work surface. Blood was running down her legs.

“Wha...” I started to ask.

“I’ve called an ambulance,” Amanda gasped, “but they’re delayed, dealing with a massive crash on the M4. They suggest the minor injuries unit.”

She gasped as pain hit her again.

“Get me there. Now! It’s only fifty yards away but it closes in minutes.”

I just picked Amanda up and ran with her. I crashed through the door of the unit. A nurse talking to an elderly man took one look at Amanda’s blood stained skirt before shouting:

“Cubicle One! Now!”

I followed her. As we entered the nurse hit a large red button and a bell started ringing loudly.

“She’s pregnant?” The nurse asked me. Amanda was almost u*********s.

“Seven and a half months,” I said.

“Any impact or accident?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She was at home. She was able to call an ambulance...”

“But they’re too busy?”

I nodded.

The nurse took a pair of scissor and cut Amanda’s skirt open. Amanda wasn’t wearing panties. The nurse pushed Amanda’s top off the bump before using a stethoscope.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “I can’t find a foetal heartbeat. Yours?”

“She will be,” I replied. “The baby isn’t. We’re marrying in four days’ time.”

A woman doctor arrived and the bell stopped ringing. The next quarter of an hour will stay in my memory for life. Amanda was sedated with blood expander being fed through a drip as the dead baby gradually emerged from her uterus. It had been a boy c***d. I stood at Amanda’s head, holding her unresponsive hand as the baby and afterbirth were caught in blood soaked towels.

The nurse pushed me out of the room as the doctor stitched Amanda up. I had to complete the paperwork because Amanda was still u*********s. Most of the minor injuries unit was in darkness, closed for patients. I sat and waited while the nurse made phone call after phone call desperately trying to find a bed for Amanda. Eventually she put the phone down and dropped her head into her hands.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “All the beds for miles around are full from the M4 accident. All I can do is book for our doctor and nurse to come to Amanda first thing tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. You’ll stay with her?”

“Of course I will,” I answered.

“We’ll help you get her home and set up with another drip. If she deteriorates, ring for an emergency ambulance. But she should be OK. At least I hope she will be. She’s lost the baby but most of the blood was from the baby, not her. We don’t know what happened, or how, but the baby’s link to the cord detached. It bled out from there.”

Two nurses and the doctor helped me to move Amanda on a trolley back to her flat. I was grateful that it was on the ground floor. I was left with a semi-conscious fiancée with a drip attached. I was told how to turn it off and detach it when the bag was emptied. I brought an armchair from the living room and sat up watching Amanda as she slept.

I detached the drip about one o’clock. In the early hours of the morning I was almost asleep but trying to remain awake. I heard Robert in my head again.

“Don’t worry, Henry. All four of us will keep watch over her. If she needs you, we’ll wake you up.”

I trusted Robert. I seemed to feel Abigail/Anne kissing me as I went to sleep.

I woke up again at seven. I walked over to Amanda. She was still asleep and looked peaceful. Her normal colour had returned unlike the grey face when I arrived yesterday evening. I went into the kitchen, made myself some instant coffee and grabbed some cereal. I was gone about five minutes. When I returned Amanda’s eyes were open. She smiled at me.

“Coffee?” she said. “Yes please.”

I gave her my mug before going back to the kitchen to make myself another.

“I’ve lost the baby, haven’t I?” Amanda asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. I didn’t really want a reminder of that arsehole. It was my baby too. I’ll grieve for what might have been but not for the half of its genes that were his. But why aren’t I in hospital?”

I explained about the M4 accident and the lack of beds. I told her the doctor and nurse would be with her soon.

“Eight o’clock! That’s twenty minutes away. Clean me up at least, please. Bring me a bowl of warm water, a flannel and a nightdress out of that drawer...”

I protested that she wasn’t fit enough. I was wasting my breath. Amanda wanted to be clean. I had to wash the blood off her, strip her completely and find a button through nightdress for her to wear. I had just finished when the door bell rang to announce the arrival of the doctor and nurse.

Half an hour later Amanda was pronounced very fit and well considering what had happened. She should stay in bed for the next forty-eight hours and the district nurse would come in the afternoons.

I rang my employers and told them what had happened. The personnel manager came on the line and told me to stay away from work looking after Amanda for the rest of the week. I had already booked next week off for a honeymoon after Saturday’s wedding. I rang my friends and cancelled Thursday evening’s low-key Stag do. They understood and wish us well.

Amanda spent a long time on her phone talking to her parents. They would collect her on Thursday because she would be going to the wedding from there. I could come and stay too. I accepted their invitation. I didn’t want to leave Amanda before we married.

That night I slept on the settee in Amanda’s living room. I would hear her if she needed to call for me. She didn’t call.

But Abigail/Anne did come to me in my dream. She was very gentle with me, riding me slowly and sensuously until I went to sleep with my head resting against a soft breast. I wasn’t really sure whether she was Anne, or was I dreaming of Amanda? The dream version of Abigail/Anne seemed to have gradually merged into a dream of the real Amanda.

Mr Jones collected Amanda on Thursday afternoon. I went to my flat, cleaned myself up, packed my best suit and other clothes, and arrived at the public house a couple of hours after them. Amanda was in a comfortable armchair in their private sitting room.

I had cancelled our honeymoon booking at a hotel in South Devon. The cost was covered by our travel insurance. Eventually I’d get the money back when the paperwork had been completed. Instead we’d stay with Amanda’s parents for the week to give Amanda time to recover.

Thursday and Friday nights I slept alone, as did Amanda. Or, in theory, I slept alone. I was visited by Abigail/Anne and the sisters Susan and Ruth who made love to me in my dream.

The wedding was very quiet. Amanda needed her father’s arm to walk up the aisle at the Registry Office, my arm to support her during the ceremony, and my arm again as we walked out as man and wife. I drove her back to the public house in my car. Amanda remained seated during most of the reception except for slow dances with her father, and with her new husband.

We went to bed together. We knew Amanda wasn’t in a state to make love. We just held hands and cuddled before going to sleep in each other’s arms.

The first few days after the wedding we spent quietly. We sat side by side at a laptop looking for my family history. Was I really descended from Richard and Anne as Amanda was? It took some research but by the Wednesday we had proved it. Amanda and I were third or fourth or fifth or whatever cousins. We were the same generation of descendants but far removed from each other’s direct line.

On Wednesday evening Robert returned in my dream.

“You’ve proved it,” he said as he appeared. “I knew you would. So I have a wedding present for my descendants.”

I didn’t know what he meant. He laughed at me.

“Remember the guineas from the Esmeralda? We hid them. They’re still here and now they belong to you and Amanda. We left a note with them. If you go into the private sitting room, lift the carpet in front of the fireplace, and the linoleum – you’ll see some short planks. Unscrew the fixings and the box with the guineas is there. Enjoy your wealth, Henry and Amanda. We did...”

He vanished from my dream. I never dreamed of him again.

Next morning I told Amanda what Robert had said. We went downstairs and told her parents. An hour later we had the heavy box sitting on a table in the living room. All four of us were standing around it. Amanda lifted the lid. Inside was an inner lid. Resting on it was an envelope addressed to “Our recently married descendants”.

Amanda opened the unsealed envelope carefully. There was a stiff piece of paper. It was dated 1858. It was very simply worded.

“To whichever of our descendants has most recently married.

These coins are your inheritance as a wedding gift. We put them aside for you as we never needed them. We hope you will be as happy as we are.”

It was signed by Richard and Anne Jones; Sarah and Ruth Simpson.

It took months of discussions with the relevant authorities about what should happen with the coins. I didn’t reveal the connection with the Esmeralda. Even if I had, I had no proof except a series of dreams. All we had was proof that Amanda and I were descended from Richard and Anne Jones.

Eventually our ancestors’ wishes were honoured. The coins belonged to Amanda and I. We kept the box and the letter but the coins were bought by a London coin dealer for enough money for us to buy a modern detached house in Bristol outright and invest for our future.

The survivors of the Esmeralda had done well for themselves, and for us.

Soon there will be another generation descended from them.

The End