Tregarthur's Prisoners: Book 3 (The Tregarthur's Series)

by Alex Mellanby

  ‘Something to do with his trade in China,’ Elspeth said, giving us a mug of tea. ‘He runs tea and other things from there.’ She paused and looked out of the window. ‘Soldiers,’ she hissed.

  We heard the marching, coming nearer, it stopped outside. I froze. Suddenly a loud rap at the door and a command to open up.

  ‘Quick, get in the cellar.’ She pushed us to a door that led out of the kitchen down into a small store room.

  We heard Elspeth talking to the men. Asking if she had seen us. Would she give us away? We just had to wait. I looked around in the shadowy darkness and saw crates with what looked like Chinese characters written on their sides. These must be part of Thomas’s trade. I gave one of them a sniff, wondering if his trade included substances my dad would know about.

  We heard the soldiers leave and we were let out. I wondered why Elspeth hadn’t turned us over to the soldiers.

  ‘Life here is pretty good,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you spreading rumours about Thomas.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I smiled.

  ‘Doesn’t mean we aren’t going to get rid of you as soon as we can,’ her face tightened as she spoke. I wondered what sort of getting rid of us she had in mind.

  ‘What other sort of trade does he make with China?’ I asked, trying to make it sound that I’d guessed it could be illegal and might involve drugs.

  ‘All sorts of things,’ she replied with innocence in her voice. ‘Tea, spices, opium – lots of things.’

  ‘Uhh?’ I grunted. ‘Opium?’

  ‘Yes, not so much is used here but they send it all over the place. Nasty stuff if you ask me.’

  ‘Can they do that?’ Sam chipped in.

  ‘Why not?’ Elspeth seemed puzzled.

  After a few more questions we discovered that opium trading was quite legal in those days. So my dad would have been a legal operator if I could have brought him here. Not sure he would have liked that, he seemed to enjoy the dodgy side of his business, and the violence.

  Thomas came back, along with a girl. She was a bit older than me, plump and red cheeked with a happy smile. Elspeth gave her a dirty look and took a tight hold on her husband.

  ‘Don’t need to worry about that,’ she said. ‘Married woman I am now.’ She turned to me. ‘I’m Ruth. You must be … Alvin.’ She said my name as though she had heard it before and that sounded really strange.

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked in too much of a hurry to make my question clearer.

  ‘She …’

  Thomas interrupted her, ‘I couldn’t find their names on the governor’s list, but I did find Ruth’s name and she …’ Thomas paused. ‘She … works in a tavern.’

  The look that Elspeth gave him explained his pauses. Perhaps Thomas was not meant to know much about that tavern. And the wink that Ruth gave him probably explained a bit more about what happened there.

  Ruth took up the story from the red faced Thomas. ‘They weren’t down as Jenna and Ivy. Someone changed them a bit – Jenny and Rose they were on the list. We still called them Jenna and Ivy though.’ Ruth grimaced as though remembering things from the voyage.

  ‘Where are they now?’ I almost shouted. ‘Are they here? Did they get here with you?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Ruth replied.

  ‘Tell me.’ And I did shout.

  Her explanation needed us to sit and it needed a glass of something for Ruth before she would tell us what had happened.

  ‘I could see they weren’t like the rest of us,’ Ruth started. ‘From that first day. They were in trouble. Too different. Didn’t mean Jenna wouldn’t have gone down without a fight – actually she did go down eventually after several fights. Mostly fighting for Ivy.’

  I could imagine Jenna doing that. Ivy might have found it difficult sticking up for herself. Jenna wouldn’t have let them take advantage of Ivy. At least not without fighting as Ruth had explained.

  Often while Ruth was talking she stole a glance at Sam. I could see there were things she left out, something had happened to Ivy and Ruth didn’t want to tell us. Unless we did find them again I felt it was best not to push for more information.

  Ruth was in full steam recounting the voyage. Months of awfulness, sickness, difficult captain and crew. What they had to do to survive.

  ‘It was a few weeks after we’d left home that I found out Jenna could read,’ Ruth said as though it was a very special talent. I wasn’t so sure that Jenna was a reading specialist, but reading anything seemed to set her apart.

  ‘Taught me how to read and write,’ Ruth said proudly. ‘We had enough time, with all the stops it was months and months before we got here.’ She finished her glass and held it for more before going on: ‘Reading got me a husband and us now in the tavern trade.’ She said the word tavern as though there might be more involved than just food and drink supplied. ‘I owe her for that.’ She gave Thomas a swift pinch on his bum when Elspeth wasn’t looking. I guessed that Thomas perhaps had made use of whatever the extras were offered at her tavern.

  ‘And Ivy?’ Sam sounded as though he had picked up something missing in the way Ruth spoke.

  ‘Ivy?’ Ruth paused as if deciding what to say. ‘She was even better at reading. She helped out with the ship’s log. Helped the purser with his working outs.’

  ‘Where are they?’ I couldn’t wait any longer and I also thought I needed to move Ruth away from talking about Ivy. We could find out more if we met up with them.

  ‘Gone to King George’s Sound,’ Thomas gave us the information.

  ‘Where?’ Sam and I said together, neither of us had any idea where that was.

  ‘I wanted to repay them for helping me,’ Ruth started again. ‘So after we arrived I kept them in our house until …’ she paused but went on quickly, ‘Until we managed to get them sent to the new colony at King George’s Sound.’ Ruth looked at me as though expecting thanks. ‘It will be much easier than working in the factory here.’ I knew there was a lot more she hadn’t wanted to say.

  ‘Ruth’s right,’ Elspeth joined in. ‘Working in the factory here is dreadful.’ Elspeth shuddered. ‘It’s not just the factory. It’s the men. You don’t survive easily working there.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Ruth and the two women exchanged a smile. Perhaps there was more sisterly friendship here than I had thought.

  ‘Don’t know what it’s like in this new place,’ Thomas said cautiously, and although Ruth went on to say she had heard it was much better no one seemed to know anything.

  ‘How do we get there?’ If I had felt defeated before, this seemed impossible. Especially when I heard that the new place was at the other end of Australia.

  My question produced silence.

  ‘Got to get you out of here first,’ Thomas said after a while.

  ‘They’re searching everywhere,’ Ruth said. ‘Don’t know what you two did but they won’t stop until they find you.’

  ‘We didn’t do anything,’ Sam moaned.

  ‘No one ever has,’ said Elspeth, and I could see it would be no use explaining how we had been set up. Probably everyone told stories of how they were innocent.

  Thomas had been thinking. ‘Only way is to get you to Hobart. I’ve a boat load for Hobart. Could get it off tomorrow if I can get a crew.’

  And that’s how we found ourselves in two packing cases being lifted on board yet another sailing boat. Marked down as ‘fragile’ as though we were cases of fine china bound for Hobart – the main town on the island, which Sam said he’d heard of before – Sam said it was called Tasmania. At that time it was called Van Diemen’s Land. And it sounded like we were going to meet demons there if they discovered us.

  Thomas said, ‘I’ve had a word with my captain. He knows about you. I’m told that boats leaving from Hobart often stop off at King Geo
rge’s Sound. You need to pick one up.’

  ‘How?’ I couldn’t see how any boat would take us. Thomas might be prepared to ship us out of here, to keep us quiet, but why would anyone else want to take us any further? Most likely we’d end up in the new jail Thomas said they’d built in Hobart. In the jail until they found the right noose to finish our sentence.

  ‘Captain Spencer will spot a boat for you,’ Thomas went on. ‘You’ll have to stow on it, climb into one of the small boats on deck, under the tarpaulin. Spencer will give you a few provisions to last you.’

  Thomas could see my desperate look. ‘Better than being hanged,’ he said. ‘Everyone here knows you’re on a death sentence. And there’s a reward on your heads.’

  That made me wonder if Captain Spencer might feel more like taking the reward than shipping us to Hobart. And that thought didn’t leave me as we bumped along down to the port, packed tightly into our crates with another week at sea ahead of us.

  ‘If you do stow away on a boat out of Hobart they’ll not turn round, too difficult a sail.’ Thomas was trying to sound encouraging, it didn’t really work.

  Captain Spencer didn’t sell us out. A couple of days out of port he let us out of the crates but kept us below decks in the hold, away from the rest of the crew. He explained that we wouldn’t have much time in Hobart. ‘Get on another ship or they’ll find you,’ he explained. ‘It’s too small a place for secrets.’

  So we never got to see the town of Hobart with its new prison or its shops and wealth that the captain told us about. The captain unloaded his cargo, went ashore and was back talking to us after an hour or so.

  ‘There’s a boat at anchor leaving on the tide tomorrow for King George’s. There’s a whaler on skids …’

  ‘What?’ I had no idea what he meant, it hadn’t been part of my sailing course, what had this to do with whales?

  ‘Whaler,’ Spencer said again. ‘Name of a small boat attached to the side of the main ship,’ he said as though I was stupid. Thomas told me to give you these.’ He handed us two small packs of food and a flask of water.

  ‘She’s anchored just on the bend,’ Spencer went on. ‘I’ll row you over there tonight.’

  ‘Won’t we be seen?’ I couldn’t see how we’d get to the boat, up on to deck and hide away without someone spotting us.

  ‘It’s their last night here. There’s someone important on board so they’ve got people going backwards and forwards to the quay. I’ll drop you off and make a distraction. You’ll have a few minutes.’

  When evening came we slipped into the small boat and Spencer rowed us out to our next ship. Just as he had said there were all sorts of boats visiting the ship, people climbing on board carrying plants and crates, lots of shouting: ‘careful’.

  We got to the side and Spencer was about to help me to the ladder. I turned to him, shaking his hand, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘It’s ok,’ he said. ‘Edward and I go a long way back.’

  And with that he poked me hard to get climbing on to the deck. The bundles we carried didn’t look out of place. The deck was crowded with people all wanting to talk about the things they had brought, all trying to talk to a man standing near the mast. Standing a bit too near to the ‘whaler’ tied to the side of the ship. Too close for us to climb in and hide.

  Then there was a loud bang. Just off the side. Everyone rushed to look. Sam started to follow. I grabbed him and pulled him back. I had no idea what Spencer had done, but it worked. We had time to run over the deck and climb into the small boat attached to the main ship and we did our best to tie the tarpaulin back down over us. It wasn’t easy and I could see that someone was likely to get suspicious. I just had to hope it wouldn’t happen until we had left the port. Once underway Edward said it wasn’t easy to turn back against tide and wind so I hoped we would at least get to this St George’s Sound even if we didn’t know what would happen to us once we arrived. Somehow we had survived so much. I couldn’t believe we were going to fail now.

  The boat grew quiet as the evening turned to night. The people from the shore all left. There were lights on deck that shone through the gap in our covering. Sam was looking at a brass plate on the inside of the whaler.

  ‘I think I’ve heard of this ship,’ he said after a while.

  ‘Really,’ I yawned, trying to wedge myself into a space to sleep.

  ‘Yeah. Heard of the name before,’ Sam went on.

  ‘And?’ I asked knowing that he was going to keep me awake with this and I couldn’t see how it mattered. ‘What’s its name then?’

  ‘The Beagle.’

  Another Specimen

  -15-

  ‘Hmm,’ I replied to Sam’s words.

  I hadn’t realised stowing away would be so uncomfortable, being wedged nearly double between pieces of wood, with oars jabbing into me and all sorts of odd stuff in the bottom of this boat – a whaler – Captain Spencer had said. I couldn’t see how you could get a whale in here, it was just a small rowing boat. And there were several nasty thoughts going through my mind – like what to do when I needed a wee or worse, although the smell was bad enough in here already. So I wasn’t really interested in Sam’s name for the boat.

  ‘You know - the Beagle,’ he said again as though he’d won a prize.

  I had a vague idea about a dog, wasn’t a beagle a dog? I didn’t know a lot about dogs, Dad had talked about getting a pit bull but that was never going to be a pet, just an animal to frighten people. Why would anyone want to name a boat after a dog, except it did smell, so maybe that was the reason.

  ‘The Beagle,’ he said again and that was pushing it a bit, made me feel stupid. Took me straight back to school, being made to feel stupid. My fault, I guess, for not going there much. Sam wouldn’t ever have done that at school, made me feel stupid, and there was just that little bit of me that felt I should kick the fat little boy, like I would have done before. He wasn’t fat or little anymore either.

  That was a long time ago – school, home, family, all the things that sounded normal and weren’t. Sam was wittering on and I wasn’t listening, just thinking. What were we doing here? Stuck in some ancient time, hidden in a boat off the coast of Australia and under sentence of death – again.

  ‘You’re not listening,’ I heard the hurt in Sam’s voice.

  So I switched off the old Alvin and said sorry and asked him to tell me about it.

  ‘It’s the boat that evolution man took when he went round the world. He collected things. That’s what all those people were bringing when we got on board. It’s him, he’s ….’

  I could almost hear the whirring of Sam’s brain as he searched for the name.

  ‘Darwin,’ Sam said, a bit louder than I would have liked.

  Sam went on to tell me the bits he remembered, which wasn’t much. After a while I must have drifted off but every time I came round he was trying to remember more stuff. I suppose it finally wormed its way into my memory because something came back to me.

  ‘Didn’t Jen do a project on it?’ I interrupted Sam’s flow of jumbled words. Jenna’s time at school was a little crazy. Sometimes her family made her go, sometimes she had to stay at home to do things for her mum. It never made sense to Jenna. Worse were her stepdads, the reason she had decided, along with me, not to go back home. Now Sam’s words brought back a really strange memory - her school project.

  I was walking home with her once with us both carrying a pile of books which I couldn’t ever see her reading and she suddenly said, ‘Miss Rollens says we were all monkeys once,’ before she looked at me and laughed. ‘Do you remember being a monkey Alvin?’ and she ran as I chased her with her making monkey noises all down the street.

  That memory made me smile, a short smile because although it had been uncomfortable in here it was about to get so much worse.
Morning had arrived, men on deck, more shouting as the sails unfurled followed by the long hard grating as the anchor pulled up and we were off. We’d been moored up in the river and for a while the boat slid over the calm water with barely a splash. Then we hit the open sea. It had only been a bit rough when we’d made the crossing with Captain Spencer, now the boat almost seemed to take off in the crashing rollers here. The wooden ship creaked and groaned as we cut into the waves with spray thrown up so high that it poured into our hiding place. There was soon a puddle of water in the bottom. I suppose it made the smell a little better, but it turned so cold.

  Sam and I shivered and tried to eat some of the bread we’d been given. Spencer had said it could take about three weeks to reach King George’s Sound. We weren’t going to last that long hidden in the whaler. We just needed to wait until we had gone too far for them to turn back. So we shivered some more, held on as the boat rolled and Sam tried to tell me more about Darwin and evolution. At least he didn’t call me a monkey because that would have really set me off.

  We didn’t have to make the decision about when to get out of the whaler. Two days after we had left Van Diemen’s Island the sea calmed and the crew were given the task of checking everything and that included inspecting our hiding place.

  So we soon found ourselves locked up in another dark hold. I thought I would be well placed to write a traveller’s guide to imprisonment in old sailing boats. This time we weren’t chained up.

  It wasn’t long before we were taken before the captain. Sam might have been right about Darwin but he didn’t seem to be in charge of this boat because the captain was called Fitzroy, a strange sort of man who immediately started ranting at us and pacing about the cabin in a frantic manner, stopping from time to time to stare at us.

  ‘Who are you?’ he shouted, before going back to stamping around again and not waiting for an answer. That was a good job because Sam and I hadn’t thought of a good story to tell. But that didn’t last.