The day laborers who gathered outside the gate every morning looking for work as porters were long gone. In their place stood several horses and carts waiting to be admitted. As Sibylla joined the line, her gaze wandered over the large memorial plaque on the wall, commemorating the founding fathers of the dock association. It filled her with pride when she recognized the name of her grandfather, Horatio Spencer, one of the men who, at the end of the previous century, had realized their vision of the largest dock installation in England with boundless patience and foresight, and in the face of great financial risk.
The guard at the gate stared at Sibylla and her elegant little gig in disbelief, but when he recognized Benjamin, he gave a quick nod and waved them through. Before them lay a long street. To the right was the harbor basin, in which so many ships lay anchored that Sibylla wondered how in the world they didn’t constantly ram into one another. To the left were the warehouses, five-story brick buildings with ramps, cargo hatches, and rope hoists.
“The heaviest wares, such as barrels of rum, are stored at the bottom, above that, the sacks of coffee and sugar or bales of cotton, and at the very top are the lightest deliveries, normally spices. A total of nine warehouses are filled with merchandise from the import dock. At the moment, two of them are being leased to the East India Company, which uses them to store tea,” explained Benjamin.
The dock was bustling. Sibylla caught snippets of all the languages of the world, and barrels rumbled over the cobbles. Workers in shirtsleeves pushed carts laden with bulging brown jute sacks back and forth between the pier and the warehouses, and the metal chains of the massive cranes rattled and squeaked. A group of flaxen-haired sailors disembarked, laughing and singing, from a ship bearing the flag of the kingdom of Denmark. The next boat over, an officer was bellowing in Portuguese at some dark-skinned sailors as they scrubbed the deck. There were dozens of barrels set along the pier, waiting for transport. The air smelled of pine tar, sticky-sweet rum, and fishy, brackish water.
Sibylla would have loved to take in every detail, but she had her hands full trying to calm her horse. The mare was overwhelmed by the great number of smells, the relentless noise, and the flurry of activity. She snorted, pricked her ears, and made several attempts to bolt.
“Fear not, Mr. Hopkins. I’ve got her under control!”
“Thank the good Lord,” Benjamin muttered as he clutched the armrest.
Finally settling her horse, Sibylla noticed a crane lifting a pallet with a half dozen sacks of coffee, and asked, “How long does it take for them to unload a ship?”
“Well, a great West Indiaman holds nearly five hundred tons, if not more. It takes four days at most to unload. When cargo traffic was still handled in the river, it used to take weeks.”
“Which would drive up the cost of the merchandise,” noted Sibylla. “Plus, there’s no protective wall along the Thames to keep away thieves.”
“Why, Miss Spencer, how extraordinary.”
She gave him another of her mocking looks. “So surprised, Mr. Hopkins? Am I to deduce that you think me incapable of such acumen?”
He laughed awkwardly. “You must admit that business is not the usual sort of thing to interest a young lady.”
“I daresay that you, Mr. Hopkins, have no idea what a young lady might be interested in,” she replied, looking at him with one eyebrow raised.
This time, Benjamin was unable to withstand her piercing gaze and turned swiftly away. “Oh, I see the Queen Charlotte up there! She arrived this morning and I have to check the cargo,” he tried to declare firmly, blushing when his voice cracked like a boy’s. “But first I shall take you to your father. Warehouse three is directly across and so you can leave your carriage here. I shall get one of the workers to mind it for you.”
Sibylla looked in the direction Benjamin was pointing and saw a splendid ship. Her two broad and massive quarterdecks, intricately carved and colorfully painted, towered over the harbor basin.
“What, no figurehead, no naked mermaid?” she asked, looking at Benjamin provocatively.
Again, he felt the perspiration starting to build under his shirt, but controlled himself. “If there is one, then it would be in the front at the bow. Shall we go and look?”
Instead of answering, she smiled, leaned back, and took in the sight of the three sky-high masts with their rigging pulled and their crow’s nests at dizzying heights. Suddenly, a stubbly man appeared next to them and barked, “Why don’t you do your gawking somewhere else? We’re trying to unload here!”
Sibylla clicked her tongue and urged her skittish horse on. This time, they stopped by the long, thin gangplank of the Queen Charlotte, which seemed taller the closer they got. Sibylla determined the ship to be no less than one hundred and fifty feet in length. She regarded its broad body, carved from dark wood, its sturdy and well-fortified appearance. The six cannon barrels pointing straight in Sibylla’s direction only enhanced this impression.
“That’s Nathaniel Brown up there. He’s the captain,” Benjamin said, pointing to a broad-shouldered man wearing the Spencer Company’s navy blue coat and a black bicorne over his brow.
Sibylla took a good look at the man. His features were harsh and weathered, betraying no emotion. He stood at the railing, watching intently as another net full of rum barrels hung in midair on its way from the Queen Charlotte to the pier.
Benjamin cleared his throat. “We should try to find your father. I’ll ask one of the men to mind your carriage for a mo—”
“Watch out!” Captain Brown shouted as he leaned over the railing. “Get away from there! Quickly!”
Chapter Two
Richard Spencer and two other gentlemen stepped out of warehouse three. One of them was the deputy chairman, second in command of the West India Dock Company. The other was an engineer whom Spencer had asked to check whether the warehouse needed any remodeling to ensure that the temperature and humidity required to store grain and leather, the two main imports from Morocco, were appropriate. When the screams began no more than twenty yards from him, Spencer at first paid them no heed. Shouting was commonplace at the docks. But then he squinted with irritation. What the devil was a little gig like that doing at the docks? It was the same kind of lady’s carriage his daughter drove!
“What in God’s name?”
Two workers were running toward the gig, screaming with all their might and gesturing upward.