Soul Seekers (13 page)

32

Emily followed Siren up the dungeon stairs as she led the way, Jude following behind her. Compared to the thick stench of the dungeon the passageway smelt almost fresh as they ascended, following the hellish shrieks of joy that sounded more like people in pain.

‘That was a big risk,’ Jude uttered at Siren. ‘Those prisoners could have torn us to pieces.’

‘The only thing they wanted more than us,’ Siren replied confidently, ‘was to get out of here.’

‘It was a horrible thing to do,’ Emily snapped at Siren as they climbed the stone steps.

‘We’re out, aren’t we?’ Jude snapped. ‘What do you want, a red carpet?’

‘It was disgusting,’ Emily uttered. ‘It was
pee
.’

‘It was a good shot,’ Siren replied amiably. ‘And the wet iron rust was a good idea too, Jude.’

‘It was a
genius
idea,’ he corrected her. ‘Looked just like blood in the lantern light. Maybe we don’t need Cas to get us out of this after all.’

Siren, Jude and Emily reached the top of the steps and saw the raucous prisoners descending in a tumble of furious limbs toward the gaol keeper, who screamed in terror as he was backed up against the gates.

Emily’s eyes flew wide as she saw who was trapped between the gaol keeper and the crowd. ‘Cas?!’

The gaol keeper shook his head furiously as he held his fat hands defensively to the crowd, his lank and greasy locks quivering. ‘I’ll tell you how to get out of here!’ he shouted at them.

The seething crowd stared at the gaol keeper for a long moment and then one of them screamed in fury.

‘There is no way in or out but that gate!’

The gaol keeper’s face flushed red and trembled with fear. ‘This boy,’ he shouted. ‘He was making a deal with the Hessians!’

Cas glanced over his shoulder in amazement at the gaol keeper. ‘Are you a complete idiot?’

The gaol keeper ignored him and implored the crowd.

‘Take them,’ he said. ‘Take the children and use them to buy your freedom! They’re worth more to the press gangs than any of us!’

The crowd stared down at Cas and a thick loathing descended around him as he stared back at them. From somewhere in the back of his mind, from behind his fear, words of his father reached out.
You can’t fight your way out of everything, but you can think your way out of anything.

Cas nodded. ‘He’s right,’ he said finally.

‘Cas’?!’ Emily screeched.

‘We’re worth more than you,’ Cas went on to the prisoners. ‘But there’s only four of us and twenty or so of you. We’re not worth
five
times as much, so nobody is going to get out of here on our account.’

Cas stood forward and swallowed down his fear as he challenged them.

‘We’re
all
prisoners here,’ he said. ‘And there’s only one gaoler keeping us
all
from freedom. What’s it going to be? A squabble over who gets out and how much it costs? Or all of us getting out of here for free?’

The crowd turned and loomed toward the gaol keeper and with another deafening shriek they plunged into him in a frenzy of flying limbs. The greasy fat man screamed as he vanished beneath the onslaught as Cas crept away toward Emily.

‘What was he saying?’ Emily demanded, ‘about you making a deal with the press gangs?’

‘A deal to get you out of here,’ Cas explained. ‘George Washington gave me sixty shillings to buy your freedom, provided I helped him ensure that the redcoats stay besieged here in Boston.’

‘
The
George Washington?’ Jude stammered. ‘You’ve been making deals with the first president of the United States?’

‘He was remarkably reasonable,’ Cas shrugged, ‘and…-’

‘How do we get out of here?’ Siren growled. ‘The door’s locked.’

Cas gave her an apologetic look. ‘The Hessians double-crossed me. It was Du Pont who locked the door when the prisoners escaped.’

Jude rolled his eyes. ‘So we’re stuck here after all. Things couldn’t get any worse.’

Emily shook her head. ‘Yes they could.’

They all turned to see the fallen guard climb up the stairs into the passage, his face like thunder and the musket and knife back in his hands.

Emily swallowed and took a step back as the lumbering guard moved toward them and raised a thick finger to point at her.

‘You,’ he roared.

Cas, Siren and Jude all leapt defensively in front of her, and she felt a rush of warmth and gratitude as Cas pointed at the guard’s weapons.

‘I’d put those down if I were you.’

The guard’s features fractured into a brittle grin and he raised the musket to point at Emily and cocked the weapon.

Cas’s voice called out above the din of the crowd. ‘Run!’

Emily whirled and plunged past the seething crowd of prisoners as she raced toward the main gate. She raised her hands to pound upon it for her release when the gates flew open before her.

Ranks of Hessian soldiers stood with their muskets pointing into the prison, Lieutenant Du Pont at their head. Emily sucked in a mouthful of air and screamed at the top of her lungs.

‘Get down!’

She threw herself down onto the ground and looked back as she saw Cas, Jude and Siren hurl themselves onto the stone floor of the passage just as a thunderous blast of musket fire crashed over Emily’s head.

A cloud of cordite smoke billowed around her and she saw the crowd of prisoners tumble to the ground. A single bullet hit the gaol guard in the chest and hurled him back down the steps toward the dungeon. The deafening volley of gunshots echoed out across the city and rumbled away on the wind.

As the smoke cleared, Lieutenant Du Pont stepped forward and surveyed the carnage. He turned to his men.

‘Gather the dead and dispose of them,’ he ordered, his voice quick. ‘As for the rest, they are now our property. Put them in chains and escort them to the docks before the British get here. We’ll put them aboard ship and be done with this.’

‘What do we tell the redcoats?’ one of his men asked.

‘That there was a prison break-out,’ Du Pont replied without concern and smiled. ‘And that we saved the population of this great city from being overrun by common criminals.’

The soldiers chuckled to themselves as they moved off to carry out their grisly tasks.

The Lieutenant reached down with one gloved hand for Emily, who took it and was lifted up off the muddy street. Cas, Siren and Jude all stood with their hands raised in the air among the surviving prisoners as they were put in irons.

‘We’re not spies,’ Emily said, ‘or thieves. You can’t do this to us.’

Du Pont offered her a pitying expression.

‘I’m afraid I don’t care who you are my dear,’ he said. ‘And I
am
doing this.’

With that, he forced a set of iron manacles around her wrists and clicked them into place.

* * *

33

Cas stumbled over the cobbled streets as he was led among the other prisoners toward the docks. He looked down at his manacled wrist for his watch before remembering that it was not there. That, he recalled, was more than two hundred years in the future, and right now seemed more beyond his reach than ever.

He looked up into the night sky ahead and could just make out the silhouette of the tall ships’ masts where they were anchored out in the bay. He guessed it was perhaps 5am. At this time of year the dawn would come both slowly and late.

‘We’re running out of time,’ he whispered to Siren. ‘We need to be back in Lincoln by seven.’

‘We’re not going anywhere now,’ she replied glumly. ‘They get us aboard that ship, we’re done for.’

The Hessians marched them into the docks to a place called Long Wharf, a wooden jetty that extended far out into the bay. A number of medium sized cutters and sailing ships were moored alongside, some with lights in their rigging and men already working to prepare them for sea.

One of the ships had a boarding ramp out, and the Hessians marched them up the ramp onto the ship’s deck. Cas watched as Lieutenant Du Pont met with the ship’s captain, who looked the miserable crowd of prisoners over with a practiced eye before haggling with the lieutenant. A minute or two later and a bag of coin was changing hands.

‘That’s it,’ Jude said. ‘We’re done. There’s no way we’ll make Lincoln now.’

Cas watched as the Hessians disembarked. Lieutenant Du Pont cast them a last glance as he walked off the ship and smiled as he did so.

‘You’re disgusting!’ Emily shouted.

A thick set man loomed over them with a thick whip in his chunky hands, and the captain pointed at Emily. ‘And you’re all now mine. Bosun, get them below decks!’

Cas, Emily, Jude and Siren were shoved with the other prisoners toward a large open hatch in the deck amid-ships. One by one they were prodded down the narrow steps into the hold, surrounded by heavy casks of what Cas guessed was alcohol, the fumes permeating the otherwise stale air below decks. A bundle of what looked like bamboo was lashed to the side of the hull, probably used to filter alcohol from one keg to another.

As soon as the last of the prisoners was aboard the hatch was slammed shut above them, sealing them in with only the heavy wooden latticework hatch to let air into the hold.

Cas heard the bosun’s whistle and the sound of the boarding ramp being drawn in. Running feet pounded the deck above their head as seamen scrambled to the masts and clambered up into the rigging.

‘We’re leaving already?’ Emily uttered in despair.

‘Morning tide,’ Cas replied. ‘The ships get out into the harbour to catch the winds before dawn.’

‘Thanks Captain Blackbeard,’ Jude said, ‘any bright ideas about how to get us the hell out of here? I don’t think our rust-blood and cup of pee idea is going to work this time.’

Cas blinked in confusion at Jude’s statement, but shrugged it off and looked about him. The other prisoners were slumped wherever they could find a place to sleep amongst the endlessly stacked kegs, the timbers of the ship creaking gently as she started to drift away from the jetty and out into the open water.

Cas heard the thump of mooring lines being tossed onto the deck. He looked at the stacked kegs around him and an idea sparked into life in his mind.

‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ he replied to Jude. ‘But you’re not going to like it.’

‘When do I ever?’ Jude muttered miserably.

The ship left the harbour, the hull beginning to roll with the waves as it moved out into open water. Cas watched closely through the hatch as a dull and reluctant light swept across the sky above. The sun always rose in the east, and now it swept from the bow of the ship to the stern. Cas caught a glimpse of the mainmast and saw its top slowly becoming shrouded in mist.

‘Sea fog,’ he murmured to himself.

‘That good or bad?’ Siren asked.

‘Bad for them,’ he replied, ‘maybe good for us.’

‘Why? Emily questioned him. ‘What are you going to do?’

Cas got up and walked unsteadily on the swaying deck until he reached one of the heavy barrels of alcohol.

‘Ships sailing out of Boston always take the same route – south east, which is what this ship is doing now.’

‘So?’ Jude asked.

Cas began pulling at the thick canvass restraints pinning the barrels in place to stop them moving about with the ship’s motion.

‘That course takes them straight past Dorchester Heights,’ he explained.

Siren got it. ‘Where you said General Washington would be.’

Cas managed to pull the restraints off one barrel and began hefting it across the deck.

‘If I’m right,’ Cas said, ‘he’ll have taken his cannons up to the heights by now. All I’ve got to do is get us there and the Hessians with us.’

Jude chuckled. ‘And how, great leader, will you be doing that?’

Cas stared at Jude. Cas had never been called a leader before and the use of the word brought him up short. The responsibility that he bore to bring them all home reappeared, the burden heavy upon his shoulders. He momentarily considered that what he was intending to do might cause them to fail and be stuck in the Eighteenth century until they died.

Then he heard the bosun crack his whip above decks and the cry of some poor sailor as he tried to escape the lash. There was no choice. Only bold action could save them now.

‘We’re going to open that hatch,’ Cas replied. ‘Help me drain some of this alcohol out of the barrel,’ he ordered Siren.

Siren obeyed without question, and together they pulled the cork plug from the top of the barrel and tipped it over. Neat alcohol spilled across the deck and the fumes stung Cas’s eyes, but he kept pouring until the barrel was half empty.

‘Okay, now put the cork back in,’ he said.

They forced the cork back into the barrel. Cas stood back and pulled off the rest of the canvass restraint from the hull wall. The canvass was dusty, dry and brittle. He stood on one end of it and ripped it into half a dozen strips, several of which he stuffed into his pocket.

‘Okay, pass me the lantern,’ Cas said, gesturing to the small oil-burner swinging from an overhead beam.

Jude began to look nervous as Emily unhooked the lantern. ‘You’re going to start setting things alight again, aren’t you?’

Cas didn’t reply as Emily handed him the lantern.

‘You know that this ship is made of wood,’ Siren cautioned him, ‘and full of inflammable alcohol.’

Cas held the canvass in one hand and the lantern in the other as he looked at her.

‘It’s not the alcohol that will catch,’ he replied. ‘It’s the fumes. That hatch lets fresh air down here into the hold, but a half-filled barrel of alcohol will also be half filled with fumes.’

Siren shook her head. ‘It won’t blow with enough force to open the hatch.’

‘It isn’t meant to,’ Cas said. ‘The crew are going to open it for us.’

Siren stared at him in confusion but Cas ignored her as he carefully removed the cork from the barrel and then quickly shoved the canvass strapping into the hole. Then he held the lantern up to the strapping, opened the lantern’s hatch, and let the flame catch on the strapping.

The dry canvass flickered into flames that began slowly burning their way down toward the barrel. Cas stood back and hurried across to the bamboo tubes lashed to the hull. He grabbed one of them, peered down its length to ensure it was hollow, then ran across to another barrel and yanked the cork out of it. Cas dipped the tube into the alcohol, then put his thumb over the top of the tube and lifted it out of the barrel.

‘It makes a vacuum,’ he told them. ‘The alcohol will stay in the tube until I take my thumb away.’

Siren peered at him with interest as he made his way back to the keg now positioned beneath the hatch. Blue smoke was writhing from the burning canvass as Cas knelt down and put the bamboo tube to his lips, aiming it up toward the hatch.

The smoke from the canvass billowed up and out of the hatch onto the deck above, and moments later he heard a shout of alarm from outside. The canvass strap burned down to the hole in the keg.

‘Fire! Smoke in the hold!’

Heavy footfalls rushed across the deck and he saw the bosun reach down and unlock the hatch. Then bosun hauled the hatch up and peered down into the gloom just as Cas reached up with his spare hand and pushed the burning canvass strap into the barrel.

A whooshing sound blasted from the cork hole as the fumes within the barrel caught fire and blasted a jet of super-heated flame out of the cork hole and up out of the hatch. The bosun’s face vanished in a boiling cloud of flame as he screamed and fell away from the hatch.

As he did so, Cas blew hard through the tube and sprayed a fountain of vaporised alcohol up out of the hold and onto the decks above. The vapour caught alight as it passed through the column of flames and burning alcohol spilled onto the decks outside to a rush of terrified screams.

‘We’re alight! We’re on fire!’ bellowed the bosun.

* * *