The Deserter (11 page)

“Well, Will Junior, the one who went out, he apparently reported you to Thomas Mann, Justice of the Peace.”

In spite of the news, he couldn’t focus on anything but that mouth, those lips which seemed so tantalizing.

“I’m afraid they could come for you in the morning. Even at dawn.”

Thomas tried to absorb all this news.

She leaned above him on one elbow, looking deeply into his eyes. “You have to go, I fear.”

He sat up, wide awake. “Yes, I’d better... no don’t worry, thank you, thank you.” He was all aflutter, less from the danger than from her presence, so close and such youthful fragrance and innocence. She crouched by him in her white nightgown, with the candle she had carried down.

“I know you are by no means guilty of anything, and if you disappear... it will look bad. But I had to tell you.” “Of course.” Thomas frowned. She was right: the worst thing was to flee. But what else? Stay and be caught? “So I have hit upon an excuse. I know the Robin’s

barque
Time and Chance
; it leaves for Douglastown at first light, if the wind is right. I can tell my father one of the sailors came in the night and gave you word you were needed back home.”

Befuddled, Thomas thought: how resourceful she is, such a quick thinker. He nodded and began to gather himself. But she hadn’t moved. He looked up at her, and their two faces, poised, began to merge. He reached out and pulled her close. For one exquisite moment, their lips met. It seemed to him that her whole life went into this touch; for one delicious instant, he felt her being joining with his.

She broke away, flustered, and went to the door. She unbarred it, and held it ready. He gathered his coat and the pouch he wore at his waist, and hurried over.

“How can I thank you?” he whispered.

“You will be back, I hope,” she replied, “in better times. And I shall be waiting...” “Yes yes, I shall definitely be back.”

But before he could say more, she had taken him by the arm and, as the wind was still fierce, held the door tightly so it wouldn’t slam shut. Quickly, she pushed him out into the rain-filled night.

The harsh clanging of the morning bell roused Thomas from a deep sleep. Quickly alert, he swung his legs over the edge of his lower bunk as did twenty other workmen, sleepily grumbling in French in their longjohns. He stood up to pull up his trousers, and his eyes went to the window. He could not believe what he saw.

Staring out, he stumbled across the rough boarded floor of the dormitory. The entire
barachois
was covered in white as though a huge down blanket had been thrown across the land and buildings, covering them with a fluffy substance he knew to be snow — his first real acquaintance with the stuff that would preoccupy him for many months to come. The low sun was already sparkling off gleaming folds that now concealed every muddy trail and walkway, piles of boards and refuse, and tufted the fenceposts with tuques — a real delight. So this was what he was in for, in the months ahead.

After his meeting with the Garretts the month before, he had made it safely back from New Carlisle, striking overland. Moving cautiously, he had wanted to avoid leaving footprints in the mud, but he had no other recourse. Rainwater in the ruts gave off enough glow for him to pick out the trail, and he’d soon broken into his Indian trot that carried him out of danger and on to his dormitory here on the
barachois.

Back again once more in the work camp, he’d forced himself to put aside any memories of the lovely day spent with Catherine and settled into an autumn of hard work. He turned away from the window and, after dressing, joined the others at the long table in the cookhouse adjacent. He spooned down his porridge with its liberal dollops of molasses supplied in puncheons from the West Indies, and listened to the French banter as his companions joked about this arrival of winter, though none of them welcomed it. He now found he was almost fluent so could understand and join in. The room had warmed up: the cook always lit the open fire before the workers got up. Thomas enjoyed the smell of wood burning, the rough sweat of the longjohns, the hot cups of bitter tea. So different from the stench of vomit and rot, the smells of pigs and slithering rats that plagued his ship o’ the line. This cookhouse was a simple affair: walls of rough planks with cracks that the workers had, on their own, stogged with moss to keep airtight. Hardly snug, but then, it was never used in winter.

Breakfast was ending when Monsieur Huard came in to make an announcement, a most unusual occurrence.

He spoke in French, slowly and firmly. The autumn was by no means over, he said, but in the next fortnight they should all plan to finish their allotted tasks. The week before, Thomas had watched his barque launched with great ceremony. Since then, he had been cleaning the site in preparation for another keel to be laid the following spring. Monsieur Huard announced that he hoped they would all join them again then. During these next ten days, M. Robin and his accountant would be pleased to settle up with the men for their summer’s work. Those that wintered here could draw down their past summer earnings in supplies and could, as usual, draw against next summer’s work, too. Very graceful it sounded to Thomas, but most men needed the advance and thus would remain in continuing debt to the Robin’s company. Next summer they would have no recourse but to sign up again — a situation he was determined to avoid.

Those men returning to Jersey would have their voyage deducted from this summer’s earning. There was in fact a schooner, the second to last ship of the year, leaving the following week for Europe, calling in at Jersey after it had visited Portugal, ending up finally at Liverpool. In spite of himself, Thomas quickened: Liverpool was only a hundred or so miles from Raby Castle and he might find himself back home in short order.

What a thought! He could easily come back again next spring. But were he taken back into the household, he’d not leave again so easily. No, once back, his life would be forever servitude. Just what he had come to escape. The men broke into groups, discussing the new events, and continued as they formed the usual lines at the outhouses. M. Huard came over to where Thomas was sitting, absorbing the news, lost in thought. He now must take firm action about this winter; he could put it off no longer.

“Eh bien, mon garçon, vous étiez...”
he switched to English. “You have work very well this year. You come back next year, no?” Thomas had of course risen as he approached, and now they drifted toward the weathered door that kept banging open and shut as the men came and went. “You look for place to stay this winter?” Thomas remembered that M. Huard had known of his escape from the British Navy, and must have, rightly, determined that Thomas was facing an important decision. “Well, not really.”

“You want stay here, work for me? Very hard, but our men, they know the woods. Not so difficult to learn.”

“Thank you very much, sir, but I have a place already.”

“Ah, you find place here in Paspébiac?” No...” Thomas didn’t really want to say where he planned on staying because first of all, he didn’t know. He’d been mulling over just how to make it through the winter in his cabin, once the roof was truly finished. “But I would be pleased to return next spring, if circumstances were kind. And if indeed I do see the winter through in all safety.”

M. Huard was silent, inspecting him, obviously trying to figure out what this new, handsome, and accomplished young man had up his sleeve. Mr. Day, the shipbuilder Robin brought out from Jersey, had spoken highly of him, M. Huard assured Thomas, and had better things in store for him next summer, were he to return. He might work on the larger barque
Gaspé,
a deep-sea craft already half built on another site across the
barachois
. Reassuring thought, Thomas agreed, and let him know that he might well take him up on that. “Now are there any boats going down the coast toward Georgetown?” Thomas wanted first to get to his almost finished cabin, and decided again to use that distant village as a ruse. “
Eh oui.
M. Robin, he send boat down, but very slow, she stop Port Daniel, Pabos, Grand Rivière, Percé...”

“Je veux bien,”
said Thomas. “
J’aime le paysage
. I would like to spend some time seeing the Coast, it’s my new home.”

“Your new home, yes. And I see
tu parles français maintenant?Très bien!
”

M. Huard appeared well pleased. “But you must be very careful,
mon brave,
the British, they are not — how you say — easy forgive.”

And so ten days later, with his knapsack and another large bag, Thomas got into the dingy to row out to Robin’s
Goélette
, a coastal vessel heading around the Gaspé Peninsula and on upriver to Montreal. He’d managed against all tradition to wangle some money out of Robin’s, as well as trading work for tea, molasses, salt, some tobacco for his Indians, and a bag of flour for himself. To complete his stash, he’d added tools for finishing his cabin and preparing hides, and a couple of presents. The early fall of snow had melted and the weather, though increasingly cold, was fair.

Rowing out to the coastal schooner, Thomas looked back over the
barachois
that had been his home for the summer. Leaving again. No sooner had he gotten used to one life than he had to change it. It had been good, in a way, each day a routine laid down, as it had been on the ship. And at the castle. Maybe he preferred that? No, regulations were what he came here to escape. But he would be leaving the few French friends he’d made, and he’d be much farther away from his compatriots in New Carlisle, the Garretts especially.

Not much chance of visiting them in the near future, nor ever seeing the intriguing young Catherine, unattainable though she might appear at this juncture.

He turned his attention to his next course of action. He felt proud and pleased that he had earned enough for these provisions, but even more, he felt worried about that golden guinea. He must get it back, priority number one. The band up Port Daniel river must be his first stopping place. And of course, he must not be put ashore at his brook. No, getting off at Port Daniel, how could he avoid the trading post? Irony of ironies should he be apprehended there.

As he drew closer to the
Goélette,
a coastal trader, he realized his safety was much more important than any guinea. But what about Magwés, or Little Birch? She had recently come back into his dreams. Was it only because, after Catherine, he’d noticed that few attractive and available women were on show in Paspébiac? M. Robin would occasionally bring round relatives or friends, dressed in their European finery, to see work being done on the boat. They would talk openly in English, certain that no one hereabouts understood, remarking on the scruffy lot making such a fine vessel. Oddly enough, these finely dressed women left him cold. No, Little Birch was of a different ilk. He also longed to see Burn and wondered if the band would like his few presents.

They clambered aboard the schooner and the mate directed them where to stow their gear and on what part of the deck they might sleep. He handed them squares of canvas to prevent deck tar from ruining their travelling clothes, and told them that if the loading went well, they should embark at nightfall and, before sunrise, drop anchor in Port Daniel bay.

A new phase of life in the New World was opening, he reflected, as he lay on deck and watched stars race around the masts as the ship rolled its way along the coastline. He heard all kinds of wonderful creaking and groaning from the rigging of the two large sails that ran fore and aft, not abeam as with his man o’war. But then, this ship could be manned by a small crew, perhaps three or four, unlike the massive numbers needed on the
Billy Ruffian
. Braced for sleep against the railing from which three shrouds rose to the top of the mast, taut and whistling in the wind, he even caught a whiff of his lovely oakum.

He loved the familiar sounds of flapping and fluttering canvas. The helmsman was doing a fair amount of cursing in French, which Thomas was not accustomed to hearing at sea. It brought him back instead to the
barachois
and his fellow workers. He began to miss them already. And as the night wore on, he missed hearing the Navy bells telling the watches, but he knew the cost of a seagoing chronometer would be far beyond any Captain of a
Goélette.
He must measure his time by their position on the shore. In the morning, Thomas focussed on the risks of landing in Port Daniel where he’d face his next obstacle, the trading post.

***

The next morning, Thomas scanned the beach and its trading post from the raised foredeck, trying to formulate a plan. A couple of men stood watching the ship; one walked down to the jetty and got into a rowboat. At one of the weathered shacks at the far east end of the beach, another came out carrying some belongings. The trader, distinctively dressed with a broad hat and European jacket, seemed to be staying on his veranda.

Should Thomas wait on board for their next port, Pabos? No. His belongings and presents weighed far too much for such a long trek, and that trip would add at least another week, which could be dangerous in this autumn weather. The early snows had melted, but the nights bore frost, and winter would soon be upon them. Every day was precious.

The man with his belongings got into the rowboat and the fisherman rowed them out toward the
Goélette
. Maybe Thomas should pass himself off as a French worker. He did look like one. Then make for a house at an end of the bank as though he lived there? Squared timbers, no verandas and unprotected by trees, would they be liveable in winter? Their greying walls held little insulation against the subzero weather, so he doubted settlers wintered there. To his left on the long hill of Port Daniel mountain, signs of cleared land indicated that perhaps yearround farmers did live somewhere. But three fishing boats moored by the jetty made it more likely the beach inhabitants were summer fishermen.

The rowboat was drawing close. Time to decide. Were the two men French? Should he test his disguise? But if they were French and he spoke to them, his accent would give him away. But speak English and they might well suspect who he was. But why would anyone associate Thomas with that lone deserter of a year ago? So try English.

The boat came aside and a rope ladder was thrown down. Thomas moved across to the traveller clambering aboard, an older man, clothes impoverished but a beard trimmed for travel. “Any Englishmen here?” Thomas indicated the shacks.

He shook his head. “Mostly French. Trader might be both. But I’m leaving. No work, no chance of a life, I’m headin’ fer Montreal.”

Thomas nervously descended the rope ladder into the small boat, and took his heavy bags as they were handed down. How would he ever get past the trader?

“C’est frette, hein?”
the rower remarked.
“Ça commence, l’hiver
.
”

“Ah ouais,”
Thomas blurted out without thinking, after his summer among the French.
“Ça commence, bien sûr
.
”
No reaction. His
joual
had worked. When they reached the jetty, Thomas tried to stop the noise made by his hammering heart — would it not alert the whole community? He grinned at the thought and stepped boldly up onto the jetty — only to find the trader looking right into his face. The man reached to intercept the bags. “Staying a bit?”