Page 70 of By Marsh and By Moor
Jed didn’t grudge Wallace his freedom.But he could not forget the way his heart had turned over at Solomon’s words.The gut-wrenching shock of betrayal.
He heard the midshipman’s voice, shouting to someone down on the beach.“What the devil happened to you three?”
Three voices answered at once.“We were set upon—We’ve been waiting for you, sir—Hardy is injured sir.”
“Silence!One at a time.”
“We found the seaman as expected, sir, in the house with green shutters, and took him away with us.But then a mob of his friends set upon us on the road and spirited him away.”
“I took a pitchfork to the shoulder,” an aggrieved voice piped up.
Jed, stuck in the cart, felt a flash of envy of this unknown seaman who was so fortunate in his friends.
“And then the driver you hired said this was more nor he was paid for, and he drove off without us.”
One of the gangers in the cart muttered, “This part of the country is getting too hot to hold us.”
“Silence,” the midshipman bellowed.“Bothwell, signal the schooner and have them send us a boat.”
The prisoners were dragged from the cart onto a sandy path leading down to the sea.Two gangers kept a tight hold on Jed.Solomon tried to get closer to him, his feet slipping in the sand, his body thrown off balance by the hands tied behind his back.
“Jed,” he called.“Listen—”
But the gangers dragged them apart.“No conspiring.”
The press gang had set up their Rondy at the Blacksmith’s Arms in Minehead.The tender anchored in Minehead harbour, and the prisoners were brought ashore.There were nine of them now: there’d been five longshoremen already imprisoned in the hold.
Jed had been identified as a troublemaker, and was kept under even closer guard than the others during the march up through the town.
Five years ago, he’d been terrified.He’d had no idea what was going to happen to him.Now, dread sat heavy in the pit of his stomach.He already knew what came next: temporary imprisonment in some convenient cellar, a cursory examination by a surgeon who was paid a shilling a head.And then transfer to a receiving ship and off to sea, until the war ended or he died, whichever came first.
He absolutely must escape before he was sent to the receiving ship.
At the Blacksmith’s Arms, the gang had taken over one wing of the large and rambling inn.Outside the main room on the ground floor, two Marines stood on guard.Jed’s heart turned over.It was months since he’d last seen those hated red uniforms.
This was it.He could feel himself being dragged, powerless, back into the groaning, creaking, grinding machine of the Royal Navy.The machine that forced you to surrender all control, or be crushed.
Between the heads of the prisoners in front of him, Jed saw Lieutenant Vaughan at a table, an open ledger before him.As the first prisoner was pushed towards him, he dipped his pen in an inkpot, hardly glancing at the man.“Name, age, place of birth?”
Behind Jed, two of the longshoremen were conducting a low-voiced conversation.
“Should I give my real name?”one whispered.
“You should if you want your family to know what has become of you,” the other whispered back.“Collect your wages, too.”
The prisoners shuffled forward one by one.Jed was the next man to reach the table.
“Name, age, place—” Vaughan’s gaze fell on Jed and he broke off, upper body tensing and then relaxing as though he had only just managed to avoid leaping to his feet.
The midshipman stepped forward.“Got two of those men you put a warrant out for, sir.Found them quite by chance at a little inn on the Barnstaple road.”
“So I see,” Vaughan said, in a voice so calm that Jed suspected he was suppressing some strong emotion.He looked over Jed’s shoulder at Solomon.“And their accomplice?Tall, fair-haired, broad-shouldered?”
“?‘fraid not, sir.No sign of him.”
Vaughan’s lips tightened.His gaze flickered around the room, doubtless taking in all the listening ears.Jed wondered what tale Vaughan had spun to explain why he was looking for them.
“Seems this one’s an able seaman, sir,” the midshipman said, indicating Jed.
