IREX
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A mystery novel set in Victorian Britain, 1890.
Written by Alan Purusram (writing as Carl Rackman)
Irex is a psychological drama following the characters and events aboard an ill-fated sailing ship whilst on its maiden voyage, told from the point of view of the ship’s troubled captain. It is based on an actual event, the wreck of the sailing vessel Irex, which took place in 1890; though the event is real, the story and characters are entirely fictional.
A parallel narrative follows a fictional investigation several weeks later as a coroner tries to unravel the mysterious chain of events that led to its sinking, while trying to find out why his inquest is facing stiff opposition from powerful forces in the British Establishment.
140,000 words. (This excerpt 10,000 words).
PROLOGUE
Isle of Wight
Monday, 3rd February 1890
The cab pulled up on the cobbled street outside the Newport law courts with a clatter of hooves, the horse’s huffing breath accompanying the muttered imprecations of the driver at the miserable weather. Mr Blake alighted from the carriage steps, stiff from travelling, the cab rocking with his heavy movements. He had left Winchester at half past four that morning in midwinter darkness, successively transferring from coach to train to ferry to train again, finally to this cab, enduring icy fog at one extreme to the present steel-grey overcast, chased by unwelcome fusillades of spitty rain driven by a biting wind. To say he was merely cold was a grave disservice to the bone-chilled discomfort he felt. He spared a thought for the cabbie, exposed to the elements, and generously pressed a sixpence into the man’s half-frozen hand, blue-white as milk; the cabbie’s lips barely moved to voice his mumbled appreciation.
Mr Blake was a tall man, and his black greatcoat flapped around him as he retrieved his case and replaced his hat, defying the squally gusts that still assaulted the island. He briskly negotiated the slick steps of the law courts, his billowing apparel presenting a brooding aspect which quite belied both the man and his purpose.
As he reached the glass-panelled door, a respectful attendant pulled it open in time for Mr Blake to be swept in by the swirling wind, and closed it as quickly as was polite, glancing through the glass and exchanging nods with the numbed cab driver, who was quick to touch his cap and clatter away from the kerbside.
Inside, Blake shook off his greatcoat. The interior of the courthouse was warm and dry, with the musty, institutional odour typical of all Her Majesty’s official buildings. Though the Isle of Wight was one of England’s geographical backwaters, it basked in a peculiar grandeur as the favourite corner of the monarch’s expansive Empire; consequently it was inordinately blessed with the latest indulgences. The humble Newport court house boasted such luxuries as central heating, interior lighting, neatly furnished offices and accommodations, and a dedicated telegraph station.
The reception clerk, expecting him, greeted Blake by name, took his coat and withdrew to the offices behind him. There were a few short, muffled exchanges through the partly opened door, carried in Blake’s direction by a rich waft of warm air and aromatic pipe tobacco smoke that preceded the clerk’s return to the front desk.
“Mr Blake, sir, please follow me to Court Number 1. Mr Peabody and the other gentlemen will receive you there.” Blake nodded again, content with the very British decorum of these initial exchanges before the grittier work began.
The young man led him through the large double doors that opened from the entrance hall into an austere, parquet-floored corridor. It had probably once been a colonnade – brick archways filled in by either blank plaster faces or functional arched windows lined the wall to the outside, while polished doors stood at spaced intervals down the other wall, with a few desultory figures gracing the benches next to them; Blake guessed they were probably attorneys or reporters.
The temperature, even here, was a drowsy warmth fed by the heating pipes along the skirting, hissing faintly as they conveyed hot water around the building. The same musty smell of papers, ink and ancient bound volumes combined with that of hot, government-issue paint from the pipes, an atmosphere as familiar to Mr Blake as the smell of burning coke to a railwayman.
Through the windows, the gusts of the waning January storms still pulled the stripped branches of the trees this way and that, though less violently now compared to the wild, winter blasts that had mauled them in previous weeks. Violent was the right word for the season it had been; and that, of course, was the sole reason for Mr Blake’s presence in Newport at all – men had died violent deaths, and it was his appointed duty to investigate the matter to Her Majesty’s satisfaction.
The young clerk knocked lightly at the oak doors marked ‘Court Room No.1’, waited a respectful beat, then opened them to the green-trimmed courtroom where a small group of suited men were gathered before the bench.
“Mr Blake, sir! Welcome to the island!”
Mr Peabody was the senior magistrate on the island, and it seemed that the Almighty had schemed to appoint Blake’s polar opposite alongside him on the bench of the inquest. An apple-cheeked and energetic man with impressive but slightly old-fashioned sideburns, whose manner was effusive to the point of irritation, Peabody cut a marked contrast with the tall, phlegmatic and clean-shaven Blake, who used his words sparingly, if at all. Peabody addressed the other men in the room.
“Sirs, may I present Mr Frederick Blake, Her Majesty’s Coroner for Hampshire County, presiding inquisitor. Mr Blake, may I introduce Mr Henry Rudd, who will be taking the third chair.” Peabody fussed around the men, continuing to introduce the other members of the court as the handshakes ensued, before launching off once again.
“I trust your journey was satisfactory? The crossing was not too rough, I hope?” In truth, Blake had been green for most of the two hours on the lurching steam ferry from Portsmouth, but given the circumstances, he was struck by the insensitivity of the question. He considered such mild privations unworthy of comment in comparison to the tragedy they had been assigned to unravel. “Yes, Mr Peabody, quite satisfactory, Now, to the matter at hand…?”
“Quite, sir, quite!” cried the magistrate. “It’s a devilish affair, this one! There will be some work ahead to get to the bottom of this, hmm?” He arched his bushy eyebrows theatrically, pursing moistened lips and appeared to be waiting for the Coroner’s polite agreement, which never came.
“Yes, well, of course!” the magistrate pressed on. “You have the appropriate documents and the lists: survivors, dead and missing; witnesses, both able-bodied and those still in hospital; and statements that have been submitted thus far.” He indicated the neat portfolios placed upon the bench for the three who would preside over the inquest. “Naturally I have already attended to the jury selection, and that the key witnesses shall attend the inquisition in turn as follows…”
As Peabody rattled on, Blake sat down at the bench and leafed through the pages of documents. The initial statements regarding the incident were quite disturbing, for the most part. Mr Blake had been briefed by no less a personage than the Solicitor General himself, pointing out that certain witness statements in the case bore some troubling testimony which may be of some embarrassment to the Crown. In the bland language of the civil servant, Blake had been asked to exercise the utmost discretion in his summarising, although he did not infer at any point that he was to curtail or strike testimony. It would fall to the Board of Trade inquiry, which would not be sitting for several weeks, to wrangle with the causes and effects of the tragedy, but for the moment, it appeared that in the matter of the loss of eight lives aboard the Sailing Vessel Irex, the findings of Mr Frederick Blake were to be the sole arbiter of truth, insofar as the truth was to be uncovered.
PART ONE
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
- John Masefield, Sea Fever
CHAPTER ONE
Near Glasgow
Monday, 9th December 1889
Barely two months had passed, and already William Hutton was decidedly restless ashore. It was said among mariners that the sea was a fickle, (some would say cruel) mistress, and this was true. Yet she had the most extraordinary and pervasive pull on the spirits of men that no mere woman could hope to equal. Hutton had stepped ashore at Greenock after another gruelling nine-month odyssey, more than two hundred days at sea – days of relentless battles with weather, malnutrition, disease and of course, the sea herself; then there was that peculiar condition, known only to sailing masters and long-term prisoners, of utter loneliness for weeks on end.
Upon his return, Hutton had spent several days alone with his gentle Sarah, who had made the unenviable choice in her life to be a seaman’s wife. Time took on a very different character for the wife left behind; when she waved away a husband before a voyage, she knew too well that even should the voyage go to plan, it would be at least eight months before she would see him again. If there were complications, that time could stretch from upwards of a year all the way to eternity.
Even if she were joyfully reunited at the appointed time, it was to a man who was a hollow and distant echo of the one she waved away – hardened by harsh experience. Malnourished, with sinew and bone pushing through skin as brown and dry as old leather; with coarse hair, perhaps a few teeth short, sporting any number of cuts, scars, lesions and boils; sometimes missing a digit, or even a limb. Beyond the physical ravages, there was always something else – a shadow behind the eyes, a perceptible reflection of things seen, things done, things said; events which had scarred his soul, and which could never be articulated to the wholesome, fragrant woman who sought only to salve and comfort. Her moist lips and soft body, so sorely missed for months, simply became too much to savour at once, such was her jarring contrast to the harshness he had endured for long months at sea.
Sometimes, once he had found his voice again, Hutton would regale his wife with the wonders he had seen – dancing aurorae in the polar skies, vast icebergs that could sink ships, exotic peoples and their verdant, mysterious homelands. But of the bitterest moments of his voyages, he had little, if anything, to say. It was challenging enough to adjust to the new sensation of being intimate again with someone known and loved; he still felt strangely distant, as if the luxury of human company, intimate touch and the trust of another were things forbidden, although they were never withheld.
The life of a sailing master was indeed a lonely one.
Hutton’s paymasters were the distinguished family that ran the illustrious ship owners and trading firm of J.D. Clink and Co. of Greenock. At least that is what he would tell any person who asked; to him, they were a second-degree company who ran their affairs with a degree of parsimony that was notable even for the times. Their interests lay principally in ships, trade, and shareholders – any other matters were secondary, or in the case of the beasts of burden they employed as crew, inconsequential. In their favour, (and for this Hutton was grudgingly grateful) they allowed the masters of their vessels a degree of autonomy that was positively liberal, and dividends for the master were relatively generous. It was a point of deep regret to Hutton that he and Sarah did not adopt the custom encouraged by many of the ship operators: that a captain should take his wife along for the months-long journey.
Hutton had once served as third mate on a flying West Indian clipper, where his captain, the highly-esteemed Mr Corden, had kept a marvellous wife alongside him – a motherly presence to the young apprentices, and trusted friend to the forecastle crew. She had once darned Hutton’s socks, an act he considered an excessive benevolence amid the grim life aboard ship. Indeed, she had made herself the darling of all hands: a soft, even-tempered foil to the brash, hard men around them. Her humanity was a warming presence in the coldness of the inhumane all around; she seemed to carry an impregnable aura of civility, so that around her was never heard a single blasphemy or profanity – the men themselves had seen to that. One look from her studied eye would evoke a red-faced shame in the face of an intemperate crewman, however drunk.
Hutton often wondered whether the presence of his own gentle-spirited Sarah might not ease his own journeys with the roughneck crews he encountered at Clink and Co. – after all, only an empty nest beckoned to her at home. Good sailing crews were hard to find – easier times were to be had aboard steamships these days – and those that were regularly available tended to hail from the tougher environs of Glasgow, London and Liverpool. But each time he mulled the benefits that a pretty and kind Christian woman might provide to the men aboard, he arrived back at the unavoidable conclusion that his wife’s kindness was not matched by the vitality and resilience essential to survive the sea, who was a cruel mistress indeed. Her constitution was not well-suited to such demands, and he surmised, as she did, that her presence would become an extra burden in an already heavy load. As far as Hutton was concerned, the sea was his jealous mistress alone, who would not tolerate a competitor for his attention as soon as the ship left the harbour.