Page 77 of By Marsh and By Moor
Jed heard snatches of conversation.“Evening, sir… Two crates of pease… the captain’s mailbag…Ossorysails first thing tomorrow morning… sign for it here....”And then, a voice raised in irritation, “You’re trying to palm some troublemaker off on me?I don’t want him.”
Jed heard the wordsable seaman, spoken in a conciliatory tone.
“Oh, all right, then,” the previous voice said grumpily.
Footsteps approached Jed.
“On your feet, man,” a voice barked.
Jed struggled to his feet.He was looking at an officer, a weary-eyed, middle-aged man.This must be the man who had come aboard.
“You’ll do,” the officer said, after inspecting him by the light of a lantern.He looked over his shoulder.“Well, get him unshackled.”
Then Jed was being ordered into another ship’s boat, and rowed away through the choppy waters of the Bristol Channel, towards another ship at anchor in the far distance, its lights only dimly visible through the night.
Closer by, the shoreline was marked by dots of light here and there from the taverns and houses of Minehead’s waterfront.Jed twisted round to watch them recede as the gig’s crew pulled at the oars.They were already fading into the night—and his last hope fading with them.
The gig rocked gently on the waves.There was something horribly familiar in the sensation.Back at sea.One of the seamen at the oars flashed Jed a quick grin: commiseration and welcome.
Somewhere ashore, a church clock struck midnight, the nighttime land breeze carrying the sound clearly across the water towards them.
Then another noise came across the water: shouts and splashes from the schooner.Jed craned his neck to see.There was some commotion on board, with cries of alarm piercing the night air.Moonlight fell on two smaller boats that had come alongside, and dark figures were swarming up the side and onto the deck.
“They’re boarding the schooner, sir!”one of the men in theOssory’s gig cried out.
Jed’s heart leapt into his throat.Finally he understood Solomon’s urgent words:Don’t run.A rescue!And he was trapped out here in the middle of the bay.
The officer hesitated.He looked over his shoulder at his own ship, a good twenty minutes’ hard rowing away, and then back at the schooner, only a cable’s length distant.Jed watched him openly, terrified that he would decide to return to theOssoryfor help.
The man pursed his lips, frowning.
“About turn,” he ordered.“Back to the schooner.”
Within a few minutes, they were back alongside the schooner, on the opposite side to the rescuers’ boats.No one answered their hails.On the deck above, shouts rang out and metal clashed on metal.
Indecisive, the officer put his hand on his sword.His men were watching and waiting.Jed’s heart hammered in his chest.
The officer came to a decision.
“With me, men,” he ordered, and soon the seamen were swarming up over the side, armed with oars and belaying pins.
One man was left to guard the gig: the same fellow who had thrown Jed a smile earlier.Jed eyed him.He didn’t like to raise his hand against man nor beast, and particularly not against some poor bugger who was only doing his job, and who was perhaps a pressed man himself.
The man stared back.He was young, little more than a boy, with weatherbeaten cheeks and plenty of muscle.
“Thinking of trying to rush me, are you?”he said to Jed.“I wouldn’t advise it.You go overboard with your hands tied like that, you won’t be coming back up.”
Jed swallowed.He couldn’t stay here, letting freedom pass under his nose.
“Cheer up,” the other man said.“It en’t a bad life.Ossory’s a good ship.Fine captain.Fine crew.I’ve been with her three years already.”
“I’ve already been at sea five years, and spent every one of them plotting my escape.”
“It took you that way, did it?”
“Yes, it took me that way.I hated it.I won’t go back.I can’t go back.”
The man regarded him thoughtfully.“Got a wife and children, have you?”
