Remember Me (7 page)

Her chance didn’t come till much later that evening. She took off her wet clothes, hung them from a nail on the beam to dry and huddled in her blanket, but each time she looked across the hold, Sarah was talking to Hannah.

It was almost pitch dark when Mary saw Sarah move towards the bucket. By then most of the women were lying down ready to sleep. Mary got up and shuffled over to her, holding her blanket round her.

‘When you’ve finished, can we talk?’ she whispered.

In the gloom she saw Sarah nod her head.

The bucket was the best place to stay, furthest away from any of the women, but without room to stand up. When Sarah had finished, they perched on a beam. ‘What is it?’ Sarah asked.

‘Who is your lover?’ Mary asked. She saw no point in being more subtle.

Sarah hesitated. It was too dark for Mary to see if she was angry at being asked.

‘Is it Tench or Graham?’ Mary persisted.

‘No, neither of those,’ Sarah whispered. ‘But you shouldn’t ask such things, Mary.’

‘Why not? I have to, if only so I know who not to make up to,’ Mary whispered back.

‘Tench can’t be drawn into such things,’ Sarah said with a sigh. ‘Most of us have tried. And I wish you luck if you’re going to try Graham, he’s a hard man.’

‘How do I go about it?’ Mary asked.

She felt rather than saw Sarah’s shrug. ‘Give him the
glad eye whenever you see him, that’s usually enough for them to call you out on a pretext. But don’t hope for much. You’ll only be disappointed.’

‘Does your man remove your chains?’

‘Sometimes, not often,’ she said wearily. ‘Now, go to bed, Mary, I don’t want to tell you these things, it’s not good.’

Mary heard the sadness in Sarah’s voice, and knew instinctively it was only desperation that had driven her to such an arrangement and she wanted no part in seeing another girl follow her lead.

‘We have to do what we can to survive,’ Mary said, taking Sarah’s hand and squeezing it. ‘That’s all it is, Sarah, nothing more. I don’t see any shame in that.’

‘You will when the others turn their backs on you,’ Sarah said, her voice breaking.

‘Better a turned back than dying of hunger,’ Mary insisted.

For over a week Mary waited, each day hoping she would be called out again for work. The weather had turned really warm and the hold was stifling. A woman called Elizabeth Soames died one night and was only discovered dead at daybreak, but what shocked Mary most was that no one had anything to say about her. She’d been locked in here for months, yet she hadn’t made one real friend and no one seemed to know anything about her.

‘She was already here when I came,’ Sarah said when Mary pointed this out. ‘She was sick then, she barely spoke. She was old anyway, don’t fret about it.’

Mary did fret about it. She wondered where the guards took Elizabeth’s body for burial, whether the woman had any relatives and if they’d be told. It also made her own desire to escape even stronger.

The only comfort she could find was reliving memories of home. She found that if she sank into them far enough she could forget the heat, hunger, smells and the other women. Sometimes she would imagine herself walking down the path to Bodinnick with Dolly and their mother to catch the boat up to Lostwithiel. Mary could only recall going there twice, the last time when she was about twelve and Dolly fourteen, but both occasions were hot, sunny days, and she remembered sitting in the boat trailing her hand in the cool, clear water.

For much of the boat journey the river ran through steep, thickly wooded banks where the trees grew right down to the water’s edge, their roots reaching out into the water like gnarled fishermen’s fingers. It was a journey of enchantment, dragonflies hovering over the water, herons standing patiently in the shallows, and often timid deer peeping out from the trees. Kingfishers perched on the tree roots, waiting for an unwary fish to swim by, and then they would swoop, a glorious flash of turquoise, and come back up with their silver prize in their beaks.

Lostwithiel was the farthest Mary had ever been from home until she went to Plymouth. It might have been no bigger than Fowey, but to her it was thrilling because coaches thundered in from as far away as Bristol and London. She watched bug-eyed as the passengers alighted, marvelling at the women’s beautiful clothes and
pretty hats, and wondering why, if they were rich and important enough to travel so far, they didn’t look happier.

Last time they’d gone there, Father had given her and Dolly tuppence each to spend. While Mother was buying material for new clothes, they looked in every single shop and examined each and every market stall before they decided what they would spend their money on. Dolly bought some artificial daisies to put on her Sunday bonnet, and Mary bought a kite. Dolly said she was stupid wasting tuppence on something she could make at home for nothing, and anyway girls didn’t fly kites.

Mary didn’t care about being the only girl to fly a kite, and she thought Dolly was foolish wanting daisies on her bonnet. Besides, kites made at home were too heavy to fly well; hers was made of red paper, with yellow streamers, and the string was waxed so it slid through her hands smoothly.

The very next day after church, Mary took the kite up on the hill above the town to fly it. Dolly came with her, but only because she wanted to show off her newly trimmed bonnet. As always on a fine day with a strong breeze there were many boys flying kites, and they all looked enviously at Mary’s when it took off effortlessly, soaring up into the sky way beyond all their homemade ones.

Dolly overcame her prejudice about it being a boy’s game, mostly because there were several boys she liked up there, among them Albert Mowles whom she was sweet on. Mary might have known she shouldn’t have
allowed Dolly to persuade her to let her hold the kite. She only wanted to do it so she could attract Albert’s attention.

A gust of stronger wind came, and to Mary’s horror, Dolly didn’t hold the string tighter, but let it run right through her fingers. The kite was off, swept along on the wind in the direction of the beach at Menabilly.

Everyone gave chase, some abandoning their own kites to rescue the superior one. Mary remembered how she ran like the wind, determined to beat all the boys, and they were all whooping and shouting at the unexpected excitement.

The kite came down suddenly and dramatically as the wind dropped, landing on some rocks to the side of the little beach. The tide was out and Mary didn’t stop to think about her Sunday clothes and shoes, but ran full tilt across the seaweed, sand and mud, her mind only on rescuing her kite.

She tripped on a half-submerged rock and fell face down. It was Albert who reached the kite, then turned back to help her up.

‘You can run faster than most boys,’ he said in admiration.

Now, as Mary lay sweating in the stinking hold, she thought she ought to remember the wallop she got from Mother when she returned home soaking wet and smeared with mud. Perhaps too she should remember Dolly’s baleful look when Mary was the recipient of Albert’s praise. Maybe she would have been wiser to have
taken note of her father’s lecture that girls who acted like boys came to a sticky end.

Yet none of those things were important to her then, or now. Nothing could detract from the thrill of seeing the red kite soar up into the sky, feeling the warm sun on her face and the soft grass beneath her feet, experiencing the joy of running wild and free, the beauty of that little beach where she so often caught crabs and mussels. It was even more important now to hold on to those memories, to think of herself as that kite, straining to be free. For hadn’t she been told at Sunday school that if you prayed hard enough for something, it would come to you?

But it was hard to believe God listened to her prayers. Did He know or care that she was terrified she’d never see Fowey again? Was it too much to ask to go back to stand on the hill and look down at the pretty little town as the sun was setting? To watch the fishing boats come in, laden with their quivering silver pilchards, or hear the men singing in the tavern by the harbour?

Tears came into her eyes as she reminded herself that she had lost the chance to make her mother and father proud of her. That she’d never be able to dance at Dolly’s wedding. Mary knew they despaired of her for being a hoyden, but she had always known they loved her. What would it do to them when she didn’t come home again?

Just as Mary was beginning to believe that the hot weather would never break and she was going to be stuck in the
hold for all eternity, she was called out for work again. This time it was just herself and Sarah.

It struck Mary that Sarah must have had some hand in it, as she’d spent two nights out of the hold since the wash day, but if she had, she didn’t let on. Once again they were instructed to wash shirts, and as they were lowering buckets over the side they saw a group of male prisoners being brought up for work too.

Although Mary often spoke to the men through the grille and could put names to the different voices, she had no idea what any of them looked like. But the moment she saw a big man, well over six feet tall with wiry, fair hair, a thick beard and pale blue eyes, she knew with certainty that was Will Bryant, the man most of the other women liked best.

Mary liked him too, mainly because he was Cornish and knew Fowey well. They had talked on several occasions, but once the initial delight of finding someone to share her memories of her home town had worn thin, she’d found him to be something of a braggart. He boasted he was one of the few men to be convicted of smuggling.

This seemed odd to her, for it was a crime that was usually ignored because everyone in Cornwall, from the poorest people to the gentry, were involved in it to some extent. As he was a fisherman by trade, with a boat of his own, he would know the rugged coastline well, and certainly have all the necessary skills for bringing contraband ashore, but Mary didn’t believe that was all he’d done. Nor did she like the way he considered
himself to be the cleverest, toughest prisoner on the
Dunkirk
.

But seeing him in the flesh, she had to admit he was handsome. Even grime couldn’t spoil his strong features, or the loose shirt hide his muscular body. His fair hair shone in the sunshine, there was a sparkle in his blue eyes, and his skin was golden-brown from working outside. He was probably only a couple of years older than her, still fit and healthy despite having been on the hulk for over a year. Clearly he’d found a way to get extra rations, which proved he was resourceful.

‘Who are you two?’ he shouted, as if they were at the market place, not prisoners in chains.

‘I’m Sarah, this is Mary Broad,’ Sarah called back. ‘A good day for working outside!’

‘It’s worth breaking my back to see you two beauties,’ he replied impudently, making the other men with him laugh. ‘If you can get away later, I’ll meet you at the tavern and buy you both a drink.’

Mary had to smile. A man who could still make jokes when he was about to start a ten-hour stint of shifting rocks was someone to be admired.

‘I’ll buy you two each, me darlin’s,’ another man called out. He had an Irish accent and Mary knew right away he had to be James Martin, the man who made all the women laugh with his florid and often suggestive compliments. But whereas Will was better in the flesh, James was disappointing. His large nose dominated his gaunt face, his brown hair was stringy, and his ears stuck out. His shoulders were stooped and his teeth were very brown.

‘I thought a horse thief would look more dashing,’ Mary remarked to Sarah as the men climbed down the ladder into the waiting boat.

Sarah laughed. ‘That one’s got more cheek than an elephant’s behind,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he needs looks too to attract women.’

‘Who were the other two with Will?’ Mary asked. One had bright red hair and freckles and looked about the same age as herself. The other was younger still, perhaps only sixteen. He was very small and nervous looking, with sharp, bird-like features. ‘The young one had a nice smile.’

‘They arrived about the same time I did. The one with the ginger hair is Samuel Bird. He’s a bit gloomy, not one to brighten up a girl’s day like Will and James,’ Sarah said with a grin. ‘The little one is Jamie Cox. He don’t say much, too shy I guess. He’s lucky Will and James Martin keep an eye on him, it don’t bear thinking of what some of the brutes in that hold would do to him otherwise.’

Mary asked what she meant.

Sarah shook her head. ‘If you don’t know, then I’m not going to be the one to tell you,’ she said. ‘There’s some things men do that are better not mentioned.’

It was quiet up on deck after the male prisoners were rowed ashore. The sun was hot on the women’s arms and heads, and a heat haze shimmered on the water. They scrubbed at the clothes in companionable silence, and there seemed no need for conversation as both of them
savoured the light breeze, the sound of the seagulls and the gentle movement of the hulk in the water.

Later, once they’d rinsed the first load of shirts with fresh water, both women bathed in the water, giggling delightedly as they helped each other to wash their hair. The two guards, who were lounging on crates further back on the deck, smoking pipes, made no comment. Perhaps the hot sun had mellowed them too.

The women’s clothes dried quickly as they hauled up fresh water for the second load of washing, but Mary was horrified to see how faded and flimsy her dress was becoming – another couple of washes and it would fall apart.

‘What will we do when these clothes are just rags?’ she asked Sarah. Many of the other women were already semi-naked, clutching the last vestiges of their rags around them to hide their bodies.

‘My man gave me this dress,’ Sarah said, her eyes downcast. ‘Hold out for clothes and food, Mary, don’t let him have you for nothing.’

Mary looked thoughtfully at her friend for a moment. Her dress was blue cotton, nothing fancy, and it was too big for her slight shape. But it was by far the best one down in the hold. She guessed that Sarah had been quite a head-turner back in Penzance, for her red-gold hair was pretty and her dark eyes smouldered.