He knew better than to run; he’d only draw attention to himself.After a moment of frozen panic, he set down the tub of grease and crouched over it, turning his back to the gangsmen.Head bent, he fiddled with the wooden clasp that held the tub closed.His heart thudded in his throat.
Marching footsteps grew nearer.Then they stopped.Jed held his breath.
“In here, men,” the midshipman cried.“The bosun must have cut off the other entrance by now.”And Jed looked up to see the gang pile into the doorway of a grubby little alehouse, the women following.
An eery hush filled the lane.No one else was in sight.
Slowly, Jed straightened up, light-headed with relief.With shaking hands, he picked up the wooden tub and hurried back down the lane the way he’d come.
When he finally reached the waggon, after taking the long way round, he found Solomon in conversation with a matronly woman, five children clustered about her skirts.Solomon’s eyes widened when he saw Jed’s face.
“You go ahead and get the children settled,” he told the woman.He ushered the whole family towards the waggon, then drew Jed to one side.“What happened?”
Jed grimaced.“Ran into the press gang.”
“What?”
“Gave me quite a turn.”His voice was coming out gruff instead of trembling, thank Heaven.“They’re probably dragging some poor buggers off to sea as we speak.”
“You all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right.”Jed wiped a hand over his face.“It, uh, it weren’t the gang from Minehead, I don’t think.Weren’t the same officer, anyroad.”Maybe they’d come off a ship anchored off Exmouth.“Christ, the whole country is infested with them.”
Only now was it sinking in.He’drun into the press gang.He’d known it was a risk, of course, coming to Exeter.But thousands of men lived out their whole lives in the town without ever getting pressed.
He stood motionless, stricken dumb.
Solomon took the tub of axle grease from his hands.“I’ll put this under the box,” he said briskly.“You get that cider on board”—he nodded at the barrels as he spoke—“and I’ll see to the passengers.”
Numbly, Jed did as he was bidden.As he was loading the last barrel, someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped two feet into the air.
It was the clerk Mrs Drake employed to take parcels and sell tickets at this end of the route.The man gave him an odd look.“Another parcel just came in at the last minute,” he said, holding it out.“And here’s the waybill.”
Jed stared at him blankly, his heart still pounding.
Solomon stepped up.“There’s space for that under the box,” he said, taking the parcel.He murmured in Jed’s ear, “We’ll be out of here in less than ten minutes.”
And, thank Heaven, so they were.
“I tried to run twice in my first month,” Jed said.He still had the scars from the floggings on his back.This morning, Solomon had traced them with his fingers.“Then I settled down to plan my escape properly.Learnt to swim.Squirrelled away money and supplies.”
It was dusk, and they were sitting on a fallen log at the edge of a field a stone’s throw from the inn where they’d stopped for the night.They had nine passengers in the waggon for the return journey from Exeter: two farm servants, a down-on-his-luck clerk, and the matronly woman with her five children.And all of them had announced their intention to sleep in or under the waggon overnight, to Jed’s frustration.At least he and Solomon had managed to slip away together for a few minutes to sit here in this quiet, out-of-the-way place.
“You were five years at sea, I mind?”Solomon said.Their shoulders were pressed together, and Solomon was warm and solid against him.
“Yes.Something always happened to stop me running.Shipwreck sent my savings to the bottom of the ocean once.Then we spent a year on blockade without ever coming within ten miles of the shore… Sometimes I was so miserable I just wanted to jump and swim to shore, any shore, even if it meant years in a French or Dutch prison.”
The words were pouring out of him now.
“When we made sail for England last summer, I thought we’d be paid off.I could see Portsmouth from the ship’s deck.Could see the smoke rising from the chimneys.But we were turned over directly from theCanterburyto theNonsuchwithout being let set foot ashore.Then theNonsuchwas ordered to Bristol, and we learnt as how we’d be sailing for the East Indies again.”
Bile rose in his throat at the memory of how it had been, the horror that had settled over him when he realised he was leaving England once more.
“So I knew I had to jump before we were clear of the Severn.Left behind everything I’d prepared, everything that would weigh me down in the water.The landsman’s garb, the trinkets I’d thought to pawn… everything.I just jumped.I didn’t care if I drowned.”
Between them, hidden by their voluminous carter’s smocks, Solomon had slipped his hand into the crook of Jed’s elbow, and now his fingers tightened on Jed’s forearm.“But you didn’t.And now you’re free.”
“Yes.”
