Escape From Home (27 page)

W
here are we going?” Laurence asked. Fred had rushed Laurence through one twisted, crowded, and muddy street after another. Now they stood in a dank narrow alley, surrounded by buildings on the verge of collapse but nonetheless reaching high enough above them to blot out the winter sun. Laurence felt he was in a long narrow room. But they were hardly alone. Vendors were hawking rags, rotten vegetables, and stale bread from pushcarts everywhere. And to Laurence's astonishment, people were buying.

“We need to find a place where you can hide while I work out the rest,” Fred said.

“What's the rest?” Laurence asked.

“You're getting on a boat for America, aren't you?” an exasperated Fred returned. “Isn't that what we're about?”

Laurence leaned against a wall, uttering a small moan.

“It's either that or you'll be caught up by all them people looking for you,” Fred reminded him.

“But
why
are they all trying to catch me?” Laurence wondered tearfully. “What do they
want
with me?”

Fred could not hide a look of scorn. “Because you've got money stuck all over you, that's why.”

“
But I have nothing!
” Laurence wailed.

“Come on,” Fred said, “don't go waxing the truth. How much did you snap?”

“Snap?”

“Steal.”

Laurence stared at his feet. Then he murmured, “One thousand pounds.”

“
One thousand quid!
” Fred cried in astonishment. “Where is it?”

“It was taken from me.”

Fred stared at Laurence. “I'll admit, you don't act like a thief. But I don't care. All I want is that you don't get caught by Toggs. You don't want that either, do you?”

Laurence looked up and down the horrid street. The narrow alley gave him the feeling of being crushed while the swarms of people pressing by, oblivious to his presence, intensified his feelings of isolation. Everything seemed terribly wrong. If he could only find a place to stop, he might think out what to do. “I need to rest,” he said.

“I'll take you to a place where you can rest all you want.”

“All right,” Laurence said.

“This way then,” Fred said.

They soon reached the dock area. It was as crowded as ever with people, carts, horses. Laurence hardly looked where they were going. So it was that when Fred came to an abrupt stop, Laurence banged into him.

“Hold it!” Fred warned.

Laurence looked over the younger boy's shoulder. Standing some fifteen yards before them were four boys side by side, blocking the way. “Fred!” cried one of them. “Sergeant Rumpkin wants you!”

“Tom Spofford,” Fred shouted back, “I'm off the association. And you can tell Sergeant it's because of Toggs!” Fred grabbed hold of Laurence and began to pull him back the way they had just come.

Laurence glanced over his shoulder. The four boys were in pursuit.

“Here!” Fred yelled, making a sharp turn and racing through a maze of barrels and boxes into a small shack, only to burst out its back door. A slow-moving horse and wagon was passing by.

“Jump on!” Fred called. He leaped on the wagon, spun about on his knees, and held out a hand to Laurence, who, running frantically behind, grabbed the offered hand and allowed himself to be hauled on.

“Now lie flat!” Fred ordered in a hard whisper. “And don't you move or talk none!”

Laurence, terribly frightened, did as he was told.

With the driver unaware of his passengers, the cart rumbled on for a while.

“Now off,” Fred cried, and he scrambled down onto the road. Laurence obeyed, only to tumble and fall to his knees. Fred jerked him up. “This way,” he cried. They staggered behind a building. Fred crept to the corner of the building and looked out. “Good, we've lost 'em.”

“Who were they?” Laurence managed to ask. He was completely spent. One of his knees was bleeding. “Why were they after me?”

“The Lime Street Runners Association,” Fred said. “It's Toggs again.”

Laurence closed his eyes.

Fred glanced up at the sky to determine the time. “Tides are low,” he said. “I can take you to my best spot. Skip the docks entirely.”

Laurence shook his head. He did not want to move.

“Come on now,” Fred said more kindly. “You can rest all you want when we get where I'm taking you.”

Laurence still didn't move.

“Don't you trust me?”

Laurence shook his head.

“Who else you gonna trust?”

“Patrick.”

“First me,” Fred said with a grin. “Then your Patrick.”

They turned south along Grafton Street. The farther they went, the less grand grew the buildings. Crowds thinned. Now and again an open patch of land was to be seen and beyond that the river. The street had become a muddy track. Crumbling cottages and broken shanties lined the way. As they pressed on, Laurence saw what looked to be fishermen's nets spread to dry. There were also small boats hauled high. The city was behind them.

They came upon a ridge overlooking the Mersey River. The river itself lay roughly two hundred yards beyond tidal flats of rocks and black sand. The stench of seaweed and rotting fish was intense. A brackish stream wound its crooked way from land to river, where rickety wooden docks had been built.

Midway between where the boys were standing and where the river flowed lay what Laurence thought was no more than a vast mound of tangled planking, spars, and rope. But when he stared at it, he realized he was seeing the remains of beached and broken sailing ships abandoned to rot.

“The hulks,” Fred proclaimed with triumph, pointing to the old ships, “that's where we'll hide you. No one will find you there.”

Laurence's heart sank. “Hulks!” he cried. “Are they prison hulks?”

Fred shook his head. “Not these. But the best hiding place in the world.”

Laurence gazed at the hulks bleakly. “How long will we have to stay?”

“Got to find that ship—the
Robert Peel—
they're sailing on,” Fred explained. “Find out when she's going. Then I'll find a way to get you on and let your friend know how and where I'm doing it. Takes time, all that.

“Come on,” he urged, and he skittered down the ridge. Laurence hesitated for a few moments but then followed. They moved across the flats. Though now and again they had to skirt puddles of water, the black sand was firm beneath their feet.

From the ridge, the hulks had seemed one mass. As they drew closer, Laurence realized how distinct the old ships were, standing more than fifty feet over his head. There were, in fact, three ships heeled over, hulls sprung, their masts and spars intertwined in a tangled mass of ropes and tackle like discarded bird's nests. Patches of seaweed and algae grew everywhere, glossing the rotten wood with a sickly green sheen.

“Here we go,” Fred called. He was standing by a ship's bow that was, in part, staved in. Above it rose an old figurehead in the shape of a great bird. Only half a beak remained. Its colors were faded. The ship's name
—Seahawk—
was barely legible.

Reaching high over his head, Fred pulled out a board and removed a candle. He lit it with a match.

“We'll need to climb some,” Fred warned. Reaching up, he took hold of a jagged end of wood and hoisted himself high, then disappeared within the hulk.

For a second Laurence considered running away. But he could see for himself there was nowhere to go. Besides, he had no energy left. Resigned, he grabbed the same jagged piece Fred had used and hauled himself into the ship.

By the light of Fred's candle, he saw great ribs of wood encircling him, ribs that stuck out from what looked like a monstrous backbone that ran down the length of the open area. Laurence's first sensation was that he—like Jonah—had entered into the dim belly of a giant fish. He could see that the planking of the hull had given way in numerous places, enough to let light, sand, and seaweed seep in.

“Over here,” Fred called. He was standing by a ladder that dangled from above. The next moment, he scampered up and disappeared.

Clumsily, Laurence made his way to the same ladder and began to climb. It brought him into another cavern, one darker than below and, as far as he could see, smaller. He had to search for Fred.

“Keep coming,” the boy called. He was on another ladder and moving up again. Laurence did the same. Fred waited at the top. It was hard to stand there, the broken deck being at a slant.

“Here you go,” Fred said, gesturing toward a door. He worked his way forward and yanked the door open. Its hinges were rusty. They stepped inside the gloomy space, and Fred stuck the candle to the floor with a blob of wax.

“Perfect, ain't it?” he said with pride. “My special hiding place. The captain's quarters.”

Laurence peered around the small room. Its rear portholes were crudely boarded over. A bunk—no more than a ledge built into a wall—could be seen on one side of the room. Where the bowed wall met the raked floor, a collapsed table lay. A few cabinets—interiors empty—had their doors gone. All else had been stripped away. The angle of the decking made it impossible to stand properly.

“Am I to stay here?” Laurence asked, looking about with dread.

“If you don't want anyone to find you, you are.”

“But … but, there's nothing,” Laurence said.

“Just a few hours,” Fred assured him. “Then I'll come back and fetch you.”

Laurence leaned against one wall and covered his face with his hands. “I can't do it,” he said. “I can't.”

“And let yourself be caught by Toggs?” Fred cautioned. “You don't mean it. Not by half!”

“But what if you don't come back?” Laurence asked.

“Don't you worry about that. I'll be back quick enough. Just blow out the candle, pop yourself onto the bunk, and take yourself a snooze while old Fred does all the work.” He was already halfway out the door.

“Please, don't go!”

“Just a short time,” Fred insisted. The next instant he was gone.

“Please, you mustn't leave me …,” Laurence cried. He tried to follow, but, forgetting he was not on a level, he slipped and fell. He hit the floor hard, then rolled until he tumbled in a heap against the wall. There he lay, crying.

Outside, Fred scampered across the tidal flats, pausing only to look back when he got to the top of the ridge. To his satisfaction he saw that the water was rising. The tide was coming in. No one would be able to get onto the hulks—or off.

A
ware that the Lime Street Runners Association was eager to find him, Fred slipped into the city with caution. As it was, he did spy one association runner—Mr. Orkin—on the prowl, but Fred avoided him without being seen.

Upon reaching the docks, he approached a sentry box where a dock policeman was standing.

“Excuse me, sir,” Fred asked, “can you tell me who's running the packet
Robert Peel
? I'm to lead a gentleman over to her tomorrow.”

The policeman ducked into his sentry box and returned leafing through a sheaf of papers. “That's a Lazarus Brothers ship.”

“Right then,” Fred cried. “Clarence Basin.”

Near the northern end of the docks, Clarence Basin was big enough to berth thirty ships or more. There was a narrow portal to and from the Mersey River, with a pair of lifting bridges so that pedestrians and navvies could move around the ships with ease. On three sides of the basin—close to the ships—rose great warehouses.

The basin was crowded with three-masted, full-rigged packet ships. Thousands of feet of rope, crossing and crisscrossing, gave the appearance of a gigantic spider's web in whose midst sailors—like spiders—worked, tarring, splicing, and tying lines.

From the quay Fred tried to pick out the
Robert Peel
. At first glance, all the ships seemed very much alike, the standard packet having three masts, copper-sheathed hulls, a short billethead, and an extended, steeply angled bowsprit. But finally by asking he found the
Robert Peel
. Looming tall, she was snug against the dock, her black-and-white bulwark newly washed and bright, a contrast to the dull copper of her hull. On the adjacent quay were bales of textiles and wooden crates. These were being taken out of the warehouse bale by bale, crate by crate, on barrows that men were rolling onto the ship.

“You've got lots to load there, mate,” Fred called to one of the workers who was momentarily resting.

“Aye, she sails tomorrow on the early tide,” the man replied. “We'll be going all night.” He stood up, approached a crate, and from a pocket pulled out a piece of chalk. He made an X mark on the box.

“The X means bottom hold, doesn't it?” Fred asked.

“Right-o. Sure thing. Any lower, and you'd have to swim it across. Top, bottom, fore, or aft—you want the weight distributed evenly, you know.”

Fred watched the men work. When he saw a piece of chalk lying on the ground, he picked it up and pocketed it. Then he wandered among the crates and pulled at some of their slats, finally sauntering away as if nothing was on his mind. He approached one of the warehouses but was chased away. It did not matter. Fred had already decided how he would sneak Laurence on board.