The Convicts (14 page)

The river was no more than a foot from the edge of the hole. Distant waves leapt in the wind, but here the river was sheltered. I couldn't see the marshes, but I heard the surf squishing at their edge, and the snicker and scythe of the long-bladed grass bending in the wind.

“Are there lights? Are there sentries?” asked Midge.

“Nothing,” said I. “It's like looking into a kettle.”

I used one of the canes to test the river's depth. I leaned from the hole, reaching far into the water, but felt no bottom.

The ship was leaning steeply now. Once we dropped clear we could never come back. It was on to the marshes or drown. I gave the other cane to Midgely.

“Penny goes first,” I said.

Penny was pleased, but Midge not at all. “He didn't do no digging/Why does
he
go first?” he said.

“ ‘Cause he knows how I can swim,” said Penny. “Like a fish, ain't I, Smashy?”

“Yes,” I lied. “That's right.” I even gave him a pat on his twisted shoulder as I thought how nasty and cunning I was. If Benjamin Penny made it to shore, then all of us could. And if

he didn't, well I would rather lose him than Oten, and I

would never let Midgely go first.

Penny pulled himself to the hole. “See you in London, Smashy,” he said. And out he went feetfirst. For a moment he hung by his fingers as the current pulled him away. Then the webs of skin spread open, and down he sank.

I flew to the hole and saw his hands disappearing into that frightful darkness. I imagined him falling to the bottom, then crawling toward the marshes—would he know which way it was? I neither saw nor heard him reach the shore.

Oten was next. He put his broad shoulders through the hole and didn't wait another instant Headfirst he dove to the river, his feet dragging across the floor. But his irons jammed against the planks, leaving him dangling there with the water churning in his struggle. I picked up his chains, his ankles, and heaved him out.

Only Midgely was left with me then. His eyes were still pasted shut, but he groped his way to the hole, and out from the ship, until he hung from the edge as Penny had done. With one hand he gripped the wood, and with the other he took the hollow canes. He even found a way to help me out, though the water made him gasp and shudder. He tucked the canes in his shirt, freeing his hand to pull at my irons, to drag them through the hole.

Cold as ice, the river swallowed my feet, my legs, my waist, and my chest. The rain soaked the rest of me; the irons dragged me down. I held on to the ship and gazed up its side, unwilling to let go. I was certain that I would plummet straight to my death, that my cane wouldn't reach the surface, that the currents would tear me away from Midge.

I could feel him shaking. Already my feet were numb from the cold, and I knew we could wait no longer, Midgely passed me one of the canes. I put the end in my mouth, and he did the same with his. We held hands, my fingers enclosing his whole fist, and a memory of my sister came clearly to my mind; her hand had been just the same size.

“Don't let me go,” said Midge.

We dropped into the river. Water slammed at my ears as it closed above my head. I felt myself falling. The cane buoyed up, then sprang from my lips and shot toward the surface. Soon my chains settled on the bottom.

In desperation, I tried to run, to haul myself somehow to the surface. But the irons held my feet, and Midgely held my hand, and I felt panic overwhelm me. I was living all the nightmares I'd ever had of the sea, of drowning. Yet the worst of them had been nothing compared to the fear I felt now.

I bent my knees and sprang forward. I hopped across the riverbed, once and twice, until my swollen lungs felt as though they'd burst. I tried to reach the surface, but Midgely pulled me down. He was dragging me to my doom, I thought, until my flailing hand found the stones on the river bottom. Then I pulled at one and inched along, and my breath exploded in a great bujbble. My £hest pulsed and heaved as I pulled myself forward. I found a chain and, in my panic, let go of Midge to grab it.

I drew up my legs and reached higher. In my breathless-ness I couldn't make sense of what came into my hands. It moved wherever I touched it, swaying and sinking. Soft in places, hard in others, it felt like a great sea plant covered in loose and leafy skin. I hauled myself up, pushing the thing down until my head broke the surface. I gasped deep breaths.

The ship was only yards away, an enormous wall of wood. A lamp was burning above the deck, swinging in a globe of golden, shining rain. The marshes were even closer. I could see Midgely sprawled at their edge, his knees and feet in the water, his hands grabbing at the grass.

Then I saw what held me up. The thick tendrils were arms and fingers, the fronds a person's hair. Oten Acres, the poor farmer's boy, floated in the river, moored by his chains. His arms weaved round and over each other, as though he swam in the current.

I nearly shouted in my horror. But I gathered my wits and held on, and his head lolled in the current, tipping sideways. I saw his face below the surface. It wore a look of pleasure, of peace and contentment. The mouth was smiling, the eyes closed, and I could see that Oten—for a moment, at least— had found his freedom.

I rested as I held him. Then I hopped and crawled and dragged myself up from the river to Midgely's side. He cried out when I touched him, and sobbed at the sound of my voice. “I thought I'd lost you, Tom,” he said.

There was no sign of Benjamin Penny, and we spared him no thought. We squirmed through the mud, a dozen yards into the grasses, then stopped in exhaustion. There, sodden and frozen, we huddled together as the wind swept the blades of grass, as the rain pelted our faces.

The morning came slowly. We smelled the smoke from the ship's cooking fire, then heard the bell across the water. Soon came the tramping feet and the irons ringing, the shouts of the guards as they hurried the boys. In our nest in the marshes, I wondered if Midgely felt the same as I, if he wished himself back on the ship just then. My teeth were chattering, my hands shaking, but as miserable as I was, Midgely must have been worse. His eyes looked like old, half-rotten potatoes— shrunken and soft. A tarry mass glued them shut.

I washed them for him, scooping water from the ground. I wet his eyes as gently as I could, then pried them open. Midgely winced but never cried. “I can see you, Tom,” he said. “You're just a smudge, Tom. All I see is smudges.”

“You'll get better,” I said, though I didn't believe it. His eyes were gray and lifeless.

I hated to make him get up and move along. But I was eager to make distance from the ship, and couldn't wait for Midge to rest. Even as I nudged him, a great commotion rose on the hulk, and the air filled with shouts. Almost instantly came the shocking bang of a cannon. The blast thudded in my ears.

“That's the signal,” said Midgely. “Now the soldiers will come.”

“We have to get moving,” I told him.

“Ain't we going to hide right here?” he asked. “Ain't that your plan?”

It was what I had told him we would do. I had hoped he would dig himself into the mud, where the soldiers would find him right away. Anything that slowed the soldiers down would help me get away.
That
had been my plan.

“I've had a change of heart,” I said. “Come on, Midge.”

My idea that I could stroll away through fields of grass seemed pathetic now. We had to slither and crawl, dragging more weight in irons than Midgely weighed himself. We found ourselves stuck in the gummy mud, and the soldiers coming already. Between tufts of grass I saw their boats scudding down the river from the naval yard. Three abreast, five more behind, they came in puffs of spray and flashing oars.

“Huffy, Midge,”! said.

Through the grass and through the rain, I dragged myself and Midgely too. I hauled him over hummocks, into puddles, round dusters of grass too thick to go through. He shivered and panted. “It ain't no use,” he said. “Go on by yourself.” But I told him more lies; they came easily now. I told him there were trees ahead, a place to shelter, though all I really saw was grass and more grass. It stretched on forever, it seemed.

We hadn't gone very far when the soldiers landed. I could still see -the masts of the
Lachesis,
and I heard very plainly the long, drumming rattle as the soldiers fixed their bayonets. I heard the scratchy sizzle as they waded through the grass behind us. “Hurry, Midge,” I said.

We crawled like lizards, with our bellies in the mud. When Midge could go no farther, I had him climb on my back and I carried him along. The soldiers came steadily, and the cannon boomed from the ship, and my hands were cut raw by the grasses. I pulled and pushed us along, snaking through the hollows. I thought we would nWer get out of the marsh, But finally, I swept the rushes aside and saw we had come to the edge.

“Why have you stopped?” asked Midgely, clinging to my back. I could feel him shaking with the cold, and hear the chatter of his teeth. “What do you see?” he said.

I didn't want to tell him. The marsh lay behind us, yet what stretched ahead was worse. Right before me, on either side, flowed water deep and gray. It churned in a current even stronger than the one that tugged at the
Lachesis
Plumed with whitecaps, dotted with fishermen's boats, it was wider than London's grandest streets.

“What's the matter, Tom?” asked Midgely.

“Oh, Midge, we're on an island.”

I wasn't sure if he laughed or sobbed. Perhaps the sound he made was a bit of both. “Well, we tried, Tom,” he said.

It might have been a kindness to him if I had stood up and waved my arms to bring the soldiers. It was surely what he wanted me to do. But I had gone too far to give up.

Out on the river the fishermen's boats rolled and pitched. Only one was working, and it was tearing toward us, a man in the middle rowing like the devil straight against the wind. It plunged through clouds of spray; the oars shed streams of water. Heaped around the rower was a net, and sitting on the top of it was a small figure wrapped in oilskins.

Perhaps I only saw what I cared to see. But a hope formed in my mind, and then a certainty, that this fellow was coming to save me. I imagined that he'd spent his whole life fishing with his son in the foul shadow of the hulk, that he'd come to loathe it, to teach his son to fear it. Perhaps he had waited years for the chance to help a boy escape.

“Stay here,” I told Midge. “Lie low and wait.”

I crawled from the grass to the mud of the bank, then got to my knees and waved both arms. The child—it was surely a child balanced high on the net—pointed toward me. The fisherman rowed even harder, driving into the waves until the spray hurled up and enveloped all three—the boat, the man, and the child.

I stood up for an instant. The soldiers were coming, still far across the marsh, but coming shoulder to shoulder in a line that stretched clear across the island. Their red shoulders, their tall black hats, rose above the grasses.

The boat came ashore. Up sprang the fisherman, dropping his oars. He leapt into water up to his knees, grabbed the boati and hauled it in. Waves broke on its side and pushed it around. Then the eMld gtoodtq-butriot a child at all. Wrapped in oilskins was a wizened old woman, a shrunken hag who must have had the eyes of a hawk.

“It
is
Mm,” she cried. “Didnt I say That's Jacob there?”‘

“That you did.” The fisherman pushed back the big, broad hat he wore. “Saints preserve me! It's him right enough.”

“Not Jacob, sir,” I said. “I'm Tom.”

The old woman cackled. “Well, Jacob you were born. Didn't I name you that myself? Didrit I haul you from the water, you as blue as blazes, with the devil already inside you?”

“No,” I said. “I—”

“That she did.” The fisherman loosened his coat, and the wind tore it off. He swirled it around and over my shoulders, like a great ragged bird covering me with an enormous wing. “So this is where you've come to, Jacob. Out in the marshes, fleeing from the hulks.”

I had no doubt who Jacob was. It seemed that wherever I went, however I ran, my dead twin would come shambling after. He had pursued me all the way from London, and bit by bit I was coming to know him. Now he had a name.

“Please listen,” I said. “I live in London, in Camden now, and—”

“Weren't you born below the Beacon Hill?” The woman stood in the wind, and it pulled at her clothes as she pointed across the marsh. “Right there? On a dark night, in a howl of wind, in the storms of harvest time?”

She knew more than was natural. Myfather's village had been just below that hill. I had been born there in November. “But—”

“Didn't your mother put you in the river? Straight in the river like a cat to be drowned, when she saw the devil inside you?”

“No!” I shook my head.

“Didn't I haul you out from the fishes myself? Didn't we care for you like our own, until the law took you off at the age of six? Oh, you were a smart little man at six, Jacob boy, striking the fear of God into all of us.”

The fisherman crossed himself. Then he turned his head toward the marshes, and with a startled cry he asked, “Who's that?”

It was Midgely, half hidden in the grass. Caked in black, his dead eyes staring, he looked more like a lizard than a boy. I told him, “Come out,” and he blundered from the marsh on his hands and knees. The sight of him would have roused pity in anyone else, but the fisherman quickly crossed himself again.

“Tom?” bleated Midgely. “Where are you, Tom?”

I went to his side, and the old woman came too. She stamped through the water, through the mud, rushing toward us. For one mad moment I thought she would say she knew
Midgely
too, by some other name and some wild story. But suddenly she seemed to soften. She laid her coat over Midgely. “Poor wee thing,” she said.

The soldiers were running. Pale light gleamed on their buttons and badges. Their red coats rippled.

“Quickly, Isaac,” said the woman. “Put the boys in the boat.”

The fisherman did what he was told. He picked up Midgely, chains and all, and set him atop the net. I hobbled toward him, and he came back for me. He gathered me up as easily as he'd taken Midge. Then the woman got in, and the man shoved the boat from the mud, and soon we were tossing across the water.

“Don't you move now, Jacob boy,” said the woman. “Don't you move a muscle.” She arranged the oilskins on top of us, hiding our heads and feet. “Didn't I say it would be a lucky morning?” she asked the fisherman.

“That you did.” Spray flew up and pelted against the cloth.

“Where will you take us?” I asked.

“Home,” said the woman. “Now lie still, Jacob boy, and not another word.”

I wondered where they lived. It might be the same little village where I had been bora; it was bound to be nearby. I would meet people who had known my father. Surely there would be someone to help me.

I lay covered in the oilskins, atop the hard coils and corks that smelled offish. Slowly I warmed, my shivers becoming less violent. But along with my warmth came the seasickness. The slamming of the boat, its dizzying rolls and lurches, wrapped my innards into their old, familiar knots. For once, though, I didn't mind. It was worth all the woozi-ness and all the trembles—and more—to be on my way to London,

Rain pattered on the heavy cloth, and now and then a burst of spray ran fivers down its edges. Midgely's little hand found mine, and I held it. I was frightened and sick, but happy as could be.

Then the fisherman stopped his rowing.

The old woman pulled away the oilskins, and my heart fell when I saw what she had meant by “home.”