Page 75 of By Marsh and By Moor
“Stand up,” he rapped out.
Instantly, Jed was on his feet, responding instinctively to that tone of command.He hated himself for doing it.
They stood facing each other.Vaughan was between Jed and the door.
The penalty for striking an officer was death.Jed felt more trapped now than he had when he was tied to the chair; he had no doubt that was quite deliberate.He could see it in Vaughan’s eyes.
“Where is Wallace Acton?”
“I don’t know, sir,” he said, thesirslipping out instinctively.
“Where did you last see him?Where does he work?Who does he frequent?Who are his friends?”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“Is that how you answered all your officers?My God, they must have come down upon you hard and fast.”
A short coil of rope lay atop the stack of chests by the door.Vaughan picked it up, uncurling it and letting it snap against the chair.It cracked like a bosun’s starter.Jed flinched despite himself.
Vaughan’s lips spread, slow and satisfied.He tossed the rope aside and stepped closer, putting his hands on Jed’s shoulders and turning him so that Jed’s back was to him.Jed clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms.
Through the cotton of his smock, he felt a finger tracing one long, slow, horrible line down his back.
“Have you ever been flogged, I wonder?”The finger stilled at Jed’s flinch.“You have, haven’t you?More than once, hmm?”His breath whispered on the back of Jed’s neck.“I wish I’d been there.”
Jed trembled with the effort of not lashing out.
There came a knock at the door.
Vaughan stepped away.“Come.”
It was one of the gangers.“The surgeon’s here, sir.”
A flicker of annoyance passed across Vaughan’s face.Then he shrugged.He picked up his hat and crossed the room in two swift steps.
“Have this man taken downstairs.He’s of no further use to me.”
The surgeon had set up shop in the same downstairs room where Lieutenant Vaughan had recorded the prisoners’ names upon their arrival.He had laid his instruments out on a table near the window, and was examining a man’s teeth when Jed was brought in.
A handful of other men stood waiting their turn, under the watchful guard of three uniformed Marines armed with muskets.Solomon was among them, and Jed felt a flood of relief.He hadn’t seen Solomon since the previous day, and he’d been worrying that Solomon might already have been sent to sea.
He thought, suddenly, how desperately he wanted to end up on the same ship as Solomon—and then he pushed that thought aside, because he wasn’t going to end up on any ship at all.
Their eyes met.There’s an able seaman upstairs,Jed heard.But this might be his only chance to warn Solomon of his plans to make a break for it at the harbour, before they were transferred to the tender.His only chance to take Solomon with him.Though he could not see how to warn him without being overheard.
“Next,” the surgeon called, as the previous man scrambled back into his clothes.
Under cover of the movement, Jed managed to get close enough to Solomon to murmur in his ear.“Solomon, listen, as soon as ever I can—”
At the same time Solomon was whispering, “Listen, Jed, please don’t try to escape until—”
“What’s that you’re muttering about?”The nearest Marine stepped in to pull them apart.“Heard the word ‘escape,’ did I?”
The line of prisoners shuffled forward.Jed tried to hang back, close to Solomon.But it was his turn now, and he was pushed forward.
The surgeon was a portly fellow with little round eyeglasses.He cast a disinterested glance over Jed, up and down.
“Strip,” he ordered, making a note in his book.
