Page 4 of By Marsh and By Moor
“Christ, I needed that,” Jed said, swallowing down the last morsel of pie and examining his handkerchief for any remaining crumbs.
They were sitting on a fallen tree trunk hidden from the road by the hedgerow.When they stopped to eat, they hadn’t wanted to risk going to a tavern, the press gang’s favourite place to knock unwary seamen over the head.Fortunately, Solomon had had the remains of a meat pie in his haversack.They shared it, for which Jed had insisted on giving him tuppence.
The chilly air was heavy with the wet, peaty tang of the salt marshes, and a fine, low-lying mist blanketed the surrounding fields.But Jed was dry and relatively warm, and the pie had filled the hole in his belly.
A twig snapped in the undergrowth nearby.Jed froze, his heart turning over.His whole body had tensed, ready to leap to his feet and run for his life.
A field vole popped its head out from under the hedge.It stared at them for a long moment, its tiny black eyes wide in fear, then swiftly vanished.
Jed breathed out, long and slow.Damn and bugger it.He’d have to rid himself of this nervous tension, or he’d drive himself to Bedlam.
Solomon was sitting with his long legs stretched out in front of him, gazing out across the marsh, a faint frown line between his dark brows.His hands were wrapped around the gourd he’d filled with water from a stream.He had long-fingered hands, tanned and strong.Jed wondered what he did for a living.
Jed spread his own hands out in front of him.They were tar-stained and rope-calloused, more so than any landsman’s.Instantly recognisable as seaman’s hands.
“I do beg your pardon,” Solomon said.“I see what I ought to have brung you is a pair of gloves.”
Startled, Jed looked up and found the other man watching him with a glint of amusement in his eyes.
“A fine kid-leather pair, and a black silk hat,” Solomon added.
Jed grinned back.“And a smart cloak and a fast horse.”
“I can only humbly beg your forgiveness.”
“A messmate of mine did that, as it happens.Stole an officer’s clothes and thought he would pass as a gentleman when he ran.”His grin faded.“He only got about three miles inland ere they nabbed him.”
“Poor devil.What became of him?”
“Nothing.They don’t hang men for deserting these days, when we’re in such desperate short supply.They only gave him a hundred lashes and sent him back to his messmates with his tail between his legs.He was killed about a week later.Cannonball took his head off.”He shrugged.“Unlucky bugger.”
He’d been determined not to fall into the same trap.No rash or hasty action.His escape was five years in the planning, starting from the instant he’d been pressed.Saving money.Learning to swim.Waiting to return to England, instead of running on some foreign shore where an English seaman would stick out like a sore thumb.He’d lost his savings several times over, through theft or shipwreck, and grimly started again.He’d spent twelve months on blockade duty off the Isle of Bourbon, with never a day on dry land.He’d been halfway around the world and back, and seen dozens of far-flung ports.And never, ever stopped dreaming of escape.
Solomon was studying him with almost troubling perceptiveness.
“I’m not going back,” Jed said fiercely.“I’d rather die.”
Solomon nodded in silent acknowledgement.
Jed got to his feet, brushing dried leaves from his clothes.“There’s a ferry at Combwich, but I’d as lief not venture so close to the sea.I was thinking of going much further upstream and crossing the Parrett at Burrowbridge early tomorrow morning.”
Solomon was still sitting on the log, leaning back, propped up on his hands.He tilted back his head to look up at Jed.“I put myself in your hands.”
“All right.Let’s go, then.”
They walked in silence at first, keeping to the back lanes.Jed’s heart was full.Everything around him was at once familiar and newly discovered: the flat, fertile land; sunlight glistening on water in the long, straight lines of the rhynes; the friendly rustle of the breeze in the reeds; the bittern’s booming cry.All seen and heard for the first time in five years.
He still had his sea legs, and the solid land under his feet felt odd with every step he took.He marched on.Better get used to it as quickly as possible, because he was never going back to sea.He marched to the sound of the words running through his head.Never going back.Never going back.
Despite keeping away from the turnpike road, they made good progress.Jed used to cross the Levels two or three times a year in his carrier’s cart; he knew the way well enough, though sometimes he led Solomon down paths which came to an end on the edge of a rhyne, forcing them to retrace their steps.
“I’d never have found my way alone,” Solomon remarked the second time this happened.“I already got lost once today.”
“Last time I took these back ways was…” It was a struggle to cast his mind back to what felt like decades ago.“Spring floods the year before I was pressed.The turnpike road was underwater.”He had been obliged to leave his cart in Bridgwater and lead a team of packhorses down narrow droves and causeways barely above water level.“I was nigh on—”
He broke off.A middle-aged gentleman on a docile mare had come riding into view: certainly one of the local worthies.The sort of person who would lose no time reporting Jed if he recognised him for a deserting seaman.
Fear froze Jed in place.There was a prickly hawthorn thicket nearby that suddenly looked extremely tempting as a hiding place.
