Page 12 of Mr Collins in Love
He gave a mirthless laugh.“They know you for a tar, they won’tletyou leave.I were pressed back in.More than once.Must have ships for the war, see?”
“Press-ganged,” I breathed.
“Aye.”
“But you got away in the end, obviously.”
“Got a place on a merchant ship, sailing for the Caribbean.And when we got back to London I hid in the hold in the cotton bales, and they missed me.But they got me going over London Bridge a few hours later.All a-waiting they were, with their cudgels, a whole great gang of them.Weren’t no escaping.They know a sailor when they see one because that’s who they want.So, I said, ‘no need to use that stick on me, mate.I’ll come with you and willing, but let a man have a drink first, eh?Acos I just got back from the Azores and I want a pint’.”
“And they let you go?”
“No, sir.They didn’t trust me above half, but they let me buy them drinks and grub and I got a couple of bottles extra of hard grog, see?And they took us out toThe Ceres, a guardship, what was lying off Sheerness, near the Nore, to hold us there afore they put us to work.And they put the other poor coves in the hold, but I said, ‘no need for that, lads, come on let’s have a drink’.And so we did, and after a while one of them gave me to understand that if I gave him everything I had, he might be able to give me something what I’d appreciate.He knew, see, what was in my head.Suppose he’d seen it a hundred times.So, I gave him what was left of my pay except what little I had hidden in my belt and he told me where to look when the time was right.And I’d been keeping an eye on the tide and so had he, certain sure, and when it was on the turn he gave me the nod.Them’s treacherous waters off Sheppey Isle, see, and I had no wish to be swept out to sea.So, I looked where he said and found a bunch of pig’s bladders, all blown up and tied together.And it was dark, so I made a rope fast and over the side I went.”
I could not speak.I could almost smell the salt and the mud and hear the shift and creak of the ship.I could almost see the black waters slapping at the ship’s side, cold and merciless, the currents racing this way and that.
“Jem.You could have been drowned.”
“Aye.But I was damned if I—” He paused.“Beg pardon, sir.I have picked up some bad habits at sea.I mean, I could not stay.”
“Yes, yes, I don’t care about your language.Not when it is just us.But Jem…going into the sea.At night.And the currents.”
“Ah, it were worse than I knew.Almost drowned.Not in the Thames but in the Medway.Treacherous, those currents be, but the tide swept me up at last to the north bank.And I got ashore, all covered in mud, and once I’d done coughing, I realised what a fool I was, for I was still dressed as a sailor, and the area all crawling with officers who would have liked nothing better than to haul me back.”
“What did you do?”
“I walked.Couldn’t risk going near Rochester, nor Gravesend, so I kept to the country lanes and rested in the woods when I couldn’t walk no more, and drank from streams.And I went south and west and on the second day I met a cove who agreed to bring me some old clothes and some boots if I gave him the half-crown I had in my belt.Poacher, he was, I reckon.And he took my sailor’s rig and gave me this hemmed pedicular jacket along with a pair of boots which don’t fit and a heading for Sevenoaks, and here I am.”
My heart was beating like a drum.He was hardly hidden, here in my stables.And while we had had no callers since he had arrived, all manner of people came to the rectory all the time.And I had not told my folk not to say anything about him.I had not known I ought to.
“But will anyone be after you?Will we get in trouble?”
He shook his head.“I ain’t that important.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain sure.”He glanced at me in the dark, and his tone was familiar, one boy to another.“Don’t you worry, Master Willie.Wouldn’t have come if I’d thought it’d make trouble for you.”
My breathing slowed.He had never lied to me about such things and indeed had more than once taken a beating upon himself to save me one.
“Well, that is all right then,” I said.
“But I do need a place.And I cannot go to port towns, nor Marshing neither, for someone might recognise me and know me for a sailor.And I dursen’t go back to sea, Master Willie.I can’t.Would kill me to do so, I expect.”
“Did you see battle, Jem?”
“Aye.”
His voice was so low I could barely hear it.I wanted to ask him a hundred questions: where and when and which ships and under whose command and what it had been like, but something in his voice stopped me.
Instead, I said, “Will you tell me about it?”
He shook his head.“Begging your pardon, but I don’t like to, see?Brings it all back.All I want is to forget it.I want to work in a garden again and live quiet.Should never have run away.Boy’s dreams.Dangerous.Didn’t know when I was well off.You know…”
He fell silent and I said, “Yes?”
“Do you remember—” he spoke as if dredging the words up from some very deep place, “—that place behind the raspberry canes in your Pa’s old garden?In Marshing.Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
