Jessamy Beech Ch. 14: Falmouth

"Lot o' work lass. But I reckon we can get her on the water in a coupla weeks."

Jessamy shook her head, "We don't have a couple of weeks Angus. It's nearly 600 miles. We need to forage for food, water, weapons, even a safe place to sleep while we're here as it is. It all takes time. We'll need fuel if the wind drops. We'll ..."

Hamnavoe gripped her shoulders, "Like I said I reckon we can get her on the water in a week."

"I don't deserve a good man like you Angus Hamnavoe," Jessamy replied quietly.

Hamnavoe wrapped his arms around Jessamy and pulled her close, "Sure ye don't lass. Ye deserve better."

Jessamy Beech allowed herself to be held, feeling vulnerable for the first time in as long as she could remember, "Wh-when I saw what Aubrey had done I ... was all set to end it all right there and then. I couldn't face life without my girls. I am such a selfish bitch I didn't even consider what it would do to you, Angus. You've lost one wife already, you don't want another one blowing her fucking brains out in front of you."

To her surprise Hamnavoe laughed, "Dinnae fash. I would've just missed having sordid, mucky sex on tap lass and I wasnae lookin' forward to wankin' myself to sleep every night again."

Despite herself, Jessamy grinned, then giggled, then laughed out loud as tears streamed down her grubby cheeks. Good tears. Happy tears.

"You fucking git," she smirked and gave her husband a playful shove, "let's find some tools and get this boat sorted shall we?"

. . .

Neither Jessamy or Hamnavoe, Ross, John or the girls noticed the tiny drone hovering near them, just out of sight beneath the granite harbour wall. No bigger than Jessamy's hand, it recorded both video and audio on a tiny SD card before returning to its operator hidden in scraggy bushes only a hundred yards away across the East Looe River.

Every fibre of Alison Nethybridge's being seethed. Jessamy Beech was still alive. She wanted nothing more than to charge back across the old stone bridge to slice the object of her loathing, and her man, into bleeding chunks of flesh. Her trigger finger twitched as she imagined putting a bullet or crossbow bolt through Jessamy Beech's face.

She glared through the mask at her targets, so close she could hear them. Almost smell them. Feeling her blood boiling in her veins as Beech and the old Scotsman, whoever he was, laughed together at some joke. But now was not the time. Alison bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood as she stifled a laugh. She'd discovered the whereabouts of a better, bigger target, the destruction of which would hurt Jessamy Beech so deeply that it would make stepping in to deliver the killing blow almost a mercy, and all the more rewarding.

Against all the odds, Beech's ex-lover Merida was alive! Even years later Alison still remembered the night she and Jessamy had made love in Bristol, "Did you love Merida?" she'd asked.

"Yes, I did," Jessamy Beech's eyes had stared across the room, unfocused, "and now she's gone I don't think I'll ever be able to love anyone like that again."

Berwick Upon Tweed. Who'd have guessed? Beech's daughters. Merida. What would Jack Aubrey do in return for this information?

. . .

Renovating the yacht to make her seaworthy took eight days. While Hamnavoe, Ross and John plundered the chandler's and every other boat nearby for salvageable parts and materials, Jessamy and the girls drove the pickup with its rapidly diminishing fuel supply around the local area searching for provisions.

Food was in extremely short supply, most of what was available being fresh vegetables. Jessamy guessed they would have to make landfall at least a couple of times to restock along the way. Their purifier might solve the problem of fresh water but fuel would have to be painstakingly siphoned from the other wrecks in Looe's harbour.

Their battered pickup's final duty would be reversing the boat trailer down the slipway at high tide.

"Shouldn't we give her a name?" Hamnavoe suggested on the last evening as they loaded blankets and provisions onboard.

"I hadn't really thought about it," Jessamy answered. She turned to her daughters, "what d'you think girls? Shall we give the boat a name?"

"Yeah if you want," Phoebe mumbled. Ada merely nodded.

Jessamy let out a long sigh. The past week had been one of constant upheaval for both her daughters, and with hundreds of miles still to travel, it wasn't over yet, "What d'you think would be a good name Ada?"

Ada twirled a lock of blonde hair around her grimy finger, "Can we call it ... Lupita? Aunt Lupita was my friend ... a-and I miss her."

Jessamy couldn't help herself. She flung her arms around her youngest and cried. What better way to honour her murdered friend than to name their means of escape after her?

"Lupita it is."

. . .

With a brisk wind blowing up the English Channel, the Lupita made good time for the first day. From Looe, Jessamy steered the little yacht due south in order to give Plymouth and Devonport a very wide berth. If HMS Poseidon possessed a working radar they'd still be spotted and she doubted they'd be able to outrun Aubrey's frigate.

They landed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight to search for food but found themselves beating a hasty retreat from hostile locals. The island had been isolated from the rest of the UK for the duration of the Thanatos crisis and the islanders grown used to their own company.

Rusting hulks of container ships, capsized cross channel ferries and vast discarded fishing nets caused major navigational hazards for the Lupita. Several times, Ross or John had to scramble overboard to untangle their fouled propeller. A journey that should have been possible in a few days was many times that. Without satellite navigation, Jessamy hugged the coastline, comparing visible landmarks such as the scorched remains of Portsmouth's Spinnaker Tower with whatever charts were available.

As they reached the chalky coast of Sussex, Hamnavoe regretfully informed them that their purifier had broken and that drinking water would have to be rationed. The south east had borne the brunt of the meteorite strikes over thirty years and inhabited communities at which to restock along this stretch were few and far between. Jessamy assumed most of the helm duty, eating and drinking up on deck while scanning the polluted waves ahead for debris or other potential threats. She slept cuddled up with the girls each night, relinquishing command to Hamnavoe or one of the others grudgingly for barely a few hours at a time.

"Ye're pushin' yerself too hard JB," Hamnavoe said quietly as they sailed past the wide mouth of the River Thames. A black pall of smoke still hung over what had once been London in the distance to the west. Even after almost three decades, subterranean fires still burned furiously. Jessamy wondered if there were barely human inhabitants there too, like the blue painted Reekies in Edinburgh.

"I ... we need to get my girls to safety Angus," she answered, nudging the wheel to starboard to take the Lupita around a bank of black, oily mud.

"I know lass. But ye're hardly sleepin', ye're no' eatin'. Wha' good will ye do burnin' yerself oot?"

Jessamy fixed him with a fierce stare, "I've had two opportunities to kill Jack Aubrey, Angus. Both times I let him live. It was as much my fault Soteria Lite fell into his hands. My fault I didn't shoot that little fucker Newald before he blabbed about the bunker and most probably Berwick too."

"I don't think even Newald would've told a cunt like Aubrey about Berwick JB. The man's a rapist but no' totally without fuckin' morals."

Jessamy returned her attention to the sea, "We have to assume the worst Angus. If Aubrey does somehow find out about Berwick we have to stop him."

Hamnavoe chewed his lip, "We have to find him first, lass. If the Poseidon's still up an' runnin' after what you pulled back in Falmouth, we cannae guarantee he'll stay put in Devonport."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FALMOUTH

2045, six years earlier ...

It hadn't been a whirlwind romance by any means. Despite the initial passion that drew twenty year old Jessamy Beech and kiwi trawler skipper Jiff Wiseley together, they both had their own very different lives to lead.

With fuel and spare parts becoming scarcer, Jiff still struggled to keep The Demelza afloat, sometimes steaming over to France or Holland to pick up cargo and not being able to return for months due to a shortage of diesel. When he did return, he and Jessamy were inseparable, embarking on foraging and scavenging together for weeks at a time, making love whenever they could and growing ever more comfortable in each others' company.

With the aid of a leaking old twenty foot sailing boat rescued from the now deserted Scilly Isles, Jiff taught Jessamy all he knew about seamanship. The patched up engine of The Demelza remained an unfathomable mystery to her and always would, but harnessing windpower through sail soon became second nature. Jessamy learned to read the weather, navigate by chart and compass and at night, by the stars.

Much to her regret, Jessamy had never managed to track down Ox and Morwenna's killer, the black clad assassin that had attacked Lupita Mpenzi. But her military expertise and survival skills were called upon time and time again as the pressures of trying to rebuild a civilisation became all too much for some.

After a particularly gruesome double murder in Madron village, Jessamy and Mpenzi volunteered to hunt down the killer east across the badlands of Bodmin Moor, eventually bringing him back bound and bleeding to face justice. Their reputation spread, and requests for their services and unique skill sets came flooding in from far and wide. Mpenzi had no inclination to lead such a life, but soon Jessamy Beech the farmer's daughter became Jessamy Beech the bounty hunter, feared and respected and frequently rubbing shoulders with the dangerous clientele of Newlyn's notorious Swordfish pub. The likes of Bob Spivey, Milo and Chainsaw Cheswick who'd have once treated her with indifference now showed her grudging respect.

For months, she and Jiff barely saw one another as Jessamy's work took her as far afield as Orkney where she developed the habit of a celebratory dram of whisky whenever a bounty was successfully collected. The payment in each case was incidental. Jessamy had no ambition to become rich hunting down other human beings for profit and involved herself simply to make the world a better place and rid it of undesirables.

. . .

Their movements became frantic as they rolled about on the rumpled sleeping bags. Jessamy made inarticulate cries, the sounds caught and muffled by Jiff's mouth. As she clutched her legs around his waist, he surged into her. She gasped out loud, shaking uncontrollably as her orgasm thundered through every tingling nerve.

Jiff held her close, stroking Jessamy's shivering spine as her breath grew shallower and her pounding heart rate subsided. He carefully withdrew and sat up straight, his thick cock still rising up in front of him.

"You want me to ..." Jessamy gazed up at him, questioningly.

"Only if you want to, beautiful. I'd never force you to do anything you felt uncomfortable with."

Kneeling in front of her man, Jessamy wordlessly took Jiff's cock in her mouth, stroking the warm shaft with her fingers while she sucked the bulbous bell of his glans, tasting herself on him. The kiwi threw his head back, light from their campfire flickering over his muscled chest and taut, ridges of his belly. Jessamy sucked, licked, teased his balls with her fingernail ... until with a loud animalistic grunt, Jiff spurted thick glistening ropes of semen over Jessamy's throat and chest.

"Fuck. That ... was amazing," he panted.

"You weren't so bad yourself. I hope there's no crazies hiding out in the bushes cos you just screamed the place down."

Jiff glanced around, suddenly abashed, "You reckon?"

Jessamy snuggled her bare legs down into her sleeping bag, feeling the chill of the night air, "I will never grow tired of making love with you, you know that?"

Jiff nodded, standing to pull on his Craghoppers, "We need to figure out some kind of ..."

"What?" Jessamy used a handful of moss to quickly wipe herself down.

"Y'know."

She always knew when the big New Zealander was embarrassed to say something. It usually meant having to coax it out of him by asking the right questions. But this time Jessamy already had an inkling what was on his mind, "Contraception?"

"Y-yeah. I can't expect to spend every night fuckin' yer brains out and there not to be ... consequences eventually. But then ... would it be so bad to bring children into this world? We're rebuilding. We're getting back on our feet Jess. Maybe it's time we ..."

Jessamy frowned, "No. Jiff, Thanatos is still up there. If we had kids they'd have twenty years of life, max. If what Bromden said was true this is all going to end if that satellite network isn't activated."

Jiff looked deflated.

Jessamy sat up and touched his arm reassuringly, "Look, I'll speak to a few women I know in the village. There has to be some sort of herbal concoction I can take. It's either that or ..."

"What?" Jiff asked.

Jessamy smirked impishly, "Avoid a litter. Take me up the shitter."

He rolled her suddenly onto her back and buried his face in Jessamy's neck, making her squeal, "I cannot believe you actually said that! You're a bad girl Jessamy Beech. And that's one reason why I love you so bloody much."

. . .

It was Lupita Mpenzi that drunkenly suggested one night that Jessamy get a tattoo in Jiff's absence. Despite the dreadlocks she still looked like a fresh faced country girl and some potential clients were as likely to laugh in her face as employ her.

But it wasn't until the following morning that they both realised the error of their decision. Jessamy had stared blearily into the mirror, nursing a crushing hangover and sporting a vivid celtic knot tattoo across the entire side of her face.

. . .

Days after Jessamy's twenty ninth birthday, she awoke with stomach cramps. John Beech, her father had waited patiently outside the bathroom door as Jessamy had vomitted noisily into the recently plumbed in toilet.

"Is there any chance you could, uh ... be pregnant Jess?" he'd asked. Jessamy had scoffed at the idea. Since their discussion, she and Jiff had been careful. But after another fortnight of daily morning sickness and a couple of missed periods finally accepted that he might be right.

Phoebe Victoria Beech was born on the night of May the ninth 2042 as a furious debris storm battered Mounts Bay, throwing bricks, shards of metal and thick, claggy mud at the house. Lupita Mpenzi acted as midwife, as leaving the cottage to find more qualified help would have surely been suicide. Jiff, the proud father arrived at first light, having battled through stormy seas all the way from Looe in The Demelza.

"We're a family now," Jessamy had told him.

Jiff had pushed tears from his eyes with an oil stained hand, "I guiss I won't be hightailing it back to New Zealand any time soon now, eh?"

All was well.

Who could have foreseen that by the year 2051, Jessamy would have saved the world from Thanatos, Jiff and Lupita Mpenzi would both be dead and the town of Penzance and Madron village would have been vapourised ...

. . .

"Don't touch that sweetheart," Jessamy warned her daughter. Phoebe was three years old and at the inquisitive stage where she had to investigate everything.

Mpenzi gently coaxed the slide of Jessamy's dismantled Glock from the toddler's chubby fingers, "Is that mother of yours leaving her guns lying around again? You come with Aunt Lupita and we'll see if we can't find you a biscuit instead. Much tastier."

"Thanks, Lupita," Jessamy brutally pounded away at a great ball of dough, raising clouds of coarsely ground flour in the Beech family's little kitchen.

"You're starting to show," Lupita commented as she reached down a tin of homemade cookies with which to bribe Phoebe.

"Wh ... oh, yeah. It's about two months now," Jessamy touched a hand to her belly. Much to Jiff's delight she'd discovered only weeks before that she was pregnant with their second child.

"That man of yours is certainly firing on all cylinders."

Jessamy blushed, remembering the last time Jiff had been home. They'd packed a tent and spent a few days hiking the coast while Mpenzi and John looked after Phoebe. The sex had been incredible. Each and every time Jessamy had been reduced to a shivering, quaking mess as Jiff's cock, fingers and tongue bestowed orgasm after orgasm on her, "I'm lucky," she replied, and meant it.

"You still miss it?" Mpenzi asked, holding up the Glock.

"I'm just giving it a clean. If you mean do I miss roaming all over the country tracking down paedos, rapists and serial killers, and mixing with the dregs of humanity ... yes I do. I miss doing something worthwhile and good, Lupita."

"You're doing something worthwhile and good here, Jess. Bringing up your beautiful little daughter with another on the way."

Jessamy let out a long sigh, "I just feel ... as if there's loose ends, you know? Thanatos is still up there. I've carried that fucking list with me for so long I know the names by heart. Jack Aubrey is still out there threatening communities that just want to be left alone. Ox and Morwenna's killer ... we never caught her either, after nine years of searching. I just want to be out there ..."

"Instead of making bread?"

Jessamy threw a chunk of floury dough across the room and laughed, "Yeah. Even instead of making bread ..."

The front door flew open and slammed back against the wall with a loud bang, "Jess, Lupita! Thank god you're both here. Something's ... happened."

Jessamy found the haunted look in her father's eyes more terrifying than his words, "Dad, what is it? What's happened?"

John Beech leaned against the kitchen worktop taking deep breaths, "Sorry, I just ... ran back ... from Newlyn," he took Jessamy's hands as he looked into her eyes, "I'm so sorry Jess. Jiff is dead."

. . .

According to an eye witness, The Demelza had been heading east past Rosemullion Point into Falmouth Bay on the far side of the Lizard Peninsula, when steaming in from the opposite direction came Captain Jack Aubrey's Type 26 frigate, the HMS Poseidon.

The frigate's big naval gun had opened fire on the Elizabethan coastal forts of Pendennis and St Mawes Castles, rendering the settlement of Falmouth and the way upriver to Truro defenceless. As a further show of force, Aubrey had then blown The Demelza out of the water.

Jessamy collapsed to her knees and howled, her arms still white with flour, "WHY?"

"Because Aubrey's a bastard Jess," her father answered.

"No," Jessamy countered, "why didn't I do something about that evil piece of shit when I had the chance?"

John Beech looked uncomfortably at Mpenzi, "There's more. There's a reason why Aubrey's set sail now. General Chinnor? The rabble that chased you out of Gloucester years ago? Well, he's got an army in tow now. They've destroyed Liskeard on the way here. Jones the Steam was one of the last to escape. You can be pretty certain Truro's going to be his next objective."

"And Aubrey?" Mpenzi asked.

"He wants it for himself. Second deepest natural harbour in the world? He can get anything in there. With that big gun of his he's got the range to anchor up in Falmouth harbour and pound the shit out of Chinnor's forces without getting blood on his hands."

"He's already got blood on his hands," Jessamy growled. She stormed into the living room and began reassembling her handgun.

"Jess!" John called, "I know you're hurting but you can't do this. You're pregnant. Leave it to someone else."