Chapter 4
I went to bed as usual that night but my heart was so full that I lay awake for hours.
When events are unfolding, even events that most would consider joyous, I am usually too concerned with displaying the correct behaviour to take much enjoyment.
Only afterwards, when I am alone and safe, can I cherish the memory.
The events of this evening were a jewel beyond price.
When I had told him he could stay, Jem thanked me a dozen times.
That, I had expected. But before he had spoken a word of gratitude, he had looked me in the eye, properly.
His shoulders had lowered and he had let out a great sigh.
Then he had closed his eyes and stood there, as if his relief was so strong that he must let it overtake him.
And it had felt to me as if we were boys and had narrowly escaped some terrible punishment.
We were safe. We were together. For once, we had triumphed over the world.
After a while, I heard Mrs Fowke and Milly go up to the little room they shared beneath the eaves, and thereafter I heard them speaking together.
I was in the best chamber at the front of the house and so too far away to hear what was said, but their voices came to me as a part of the natural world; leaves rustling in a breeze or water burbling in a brook.
One of them laughed, and was hushed. The voices paused, then went on with the laughter still in them.
I wondered what they could find to say to one another that they had not already said during the day. Perhaps they spoke of Jem.
I got out of bed and, going to the casement, eased it open.
The nightingale was still singing in Butler’s coppice and the air was cool and sweet.
There was a near-full moon and I could make out every pale of the garden fence and the dark swags of the roses.
I leaned out. To my left was the shed where we kept the gig and Pilot’s tack, and there was the corner of the stable where Jem lay in the hay in his verminous jacket.
Upstairs, the voices fell silent and did not resume.
Sometimes, as a boy, I had snuck out at night.
I was not adventurous, finding the world quite dangerous enough without my needing to seek out more peril, and had I been caught I would certainly have been beaten.
Perhaps it had been a desire to see the world in a different light, to see if I liked it better that way.
Or perhaps I had simply wanted a story to tell Jem, for my moonlit excursions had occurred early on in our acquaintance when I had still believed I must impress him if I wanted him to remain my friend.
Not that my stories of midnight excursions would have been very exciting for I had generally gone no further than the garden or the churchyard.
Only once had I gone as far as the yard of the Ship, where I had concealed myself behind some old barrels and spied upon the farmers and the fishermen going in and coming out.
I had told myself one of them might drop a coin, but only because that sounded like the kind of thing I imagined an adventurous boy might say.
Had anyone actually dropped a sixpence, I should have let it lie, as taking it would have been too much like stealing.
In any case, the fact was that observing people when I myself was unobserved had caused in me a particular kind of excitement.
They could not mark what I did, nor discuss it, yet I was seeing some quintessence of their personalities, because they thought they were alone, and surely people were only truly themselves when they were alone.
It was not that they did anything more untoward than breaking wind or making water in the alley, and likely they would have done those things anyway, whether they knew I watched them or not.
But all the same, I had felt somehow rarified, both brave and safe, though not so safe I had dared to repeat the experience.
I turned from the casement, removed my nightshirt, and dressed.
I was as silent as I knew how and had to remind myself several times that this was my house and I the master here.
I could do as I liked. The stairs creaked so much I was sure Mrs Fowke and Milly would appear in their nightgowns and demand to know what was to do, but no one came.
I unbarred the front door and stepped out. The air was fresh, though the sun-warmed stone of the house was radiating heat. I took the path to the stables, towards the scent of hay and horse.
“Jem?” I whispered. “Jem.”
He answered instantly. “Aye? Something amiss?”
Rustlings came from within and his head and shoulders appeared over the half-door.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I…merely wished to…to make sure you are warm enough and have everything you need. And now I have woken you.”
“No, no, I was awake.”
“Well, are you warm enough?”
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
“Good, good. I’ll go. You must be tired, having come all the way from Hastings.” I turned away.
“Wait. A…a moment of your time, sir, if you please. Because I cannot sleep and that’s the truth.”
I turned back, pleased to continue my excursion a little longer. “Are you not tired, Jem?”
“I am that fagged, sir. I have walked a long way.”
“I know. From Hastings, I think?”
“Well…that is what I wanted to tell you.”
“Yes?”
“I…I didn’t come from Hastings. Nor from Marshing, neither.”
“Er…no? But you said?—”
“I come from Sheerness.”
I frowned in the dark. Sheerness was to the north-east, on the Thames, not far from Rochester and almost completely in the other direction. “What were you doing there, Jem? I thought you said the tannery was near Hastings?”
“I did, sir, but the fact is…well…I lied. I never was in no tannery. And I didn’t ought to tell you an untruth. Because you have always been good to me and now I cannot sleep until I have set things right and told you the truth.” He lowered his voice. “About my situation. And what I have done.”
The shadows and the moonlight seemed suddenly sinister and my blood ran cold. “Your situation? Oh, Jem, what have you done?”
“Can I tell you my story first, sir? And then I hope you will understand and will let me stay.”
“Tell me.” My voice was harsh because I was afraid for both of us.
“I will sit down, if you don’t mind, sir, for it is quite a tale. We could both sit on the bench outside.”
I agreed to this and we sat side by side, our backs warmed by the sun that lingered still in the stable wall, though nothing could warm the chill that now clutched at my heart.
“You know I ran away to sea,” he said.
“Yes, of course.”
“Aye, well, it weren’t no life. Was cruel hard and captain didn’t like me and I never did get used to all that water. Missed the fields, see? And the woods. Even missed digging potatoes. Used to dream about grass beneath my feet.”
“Could you not leave?”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “They know you for a tar, they won’t let you leave. I were pressed back in. More than once. Must have ships for the war, see?”
“Press-ganged,” I breathed.
“Aye.”
“But you got away in the end, obviously.”
“Got a place on a merchant ship, sailing for the Caribbean. And when we got back to London I hid in the hold in the cotton bales, and they missed me. But they got me going over London Bridge a few hours later. All a-waiting they were, with their cudgels, a whole great gang of them. Weren’t no escaping.
They know a sailor when they see one because that’s who they want.
So, I said, ‘no need to use that stick on me, mate. I’ll come with you and willing, but let a man have a drink first, eh?
Acos I just got back from the Azores and I want a pint’. ”
“And they let you go?”
“No, sir. They didn’t trust me above half, but they let me buy them drinks and grub and I got a couple of bottles extra of hard grog, see?
And they took us out to The Ceres , a guardship, what was lying off Sheerness, near the Nore, to hold us there afore they put us to work.
And they put the other poor coves in the hold, but I said, ‘no need for that, lads, come on let’s have a drink’.
And so we did, and after a while one of them gave me to understand that if I gave him everything I had, he might be able to give me something what I’d appreciate.
He knew, see, what was in my head. Suppose he’d seen it a hundred times.
So, I gave him what was left of my pay except what little I had hidden in my belt and he told me where to look when the time was right.
And I’d been keeping an eye on the tide and so had he, certain sure, and when it was on the turn he gave me the nod.
Them’s treacherous waters off Sheppey Isle, see, and I had no wish to be swept out to sea.
So, I looked where he said and found a bunch of pig’s bladders, all blown up and tied together.
And it was dark, so I made a rope fast and over the side I went. ”
I could not speak. I could almost smell the salt and the mud and hear the shift and creak of the ship. I could almost see the black waters slapping at the ship’s side, cold and merciless, the currents racing this way and that.
“Jem. You could have been drowned.”
“Aye. But I was damned if I—” He paused. “Beg pardon, sir. I have picked up some bad habits at sea. I mean, I could not stay.”
“Yes, yes, I don’t care about your language. Not when it is just us. But Jem…going into the sea. At night. And the currents.”
“Ah, it were worse than I knew. Almost drowned. Not in the Thames but in the Medway. Treacherous, those currents be, but the tide swept me up at last to the north bank. And I got ashore, all covered in mud, and once I’d done coughing, I realised what a fool I was, for I was still dressed as a sailor, and the area all crawling with officers who would have liked nothing better than to haul me back. ”
“What did you do?”