The Highwayman

by F. M. Parker

  Jacklin and two other men of Patrick’s acquaintances followed him to his table to talk. Patrick had gold so he declined the cheap gin and ale the other patrons drank and ordered French brandy for the three men and himself. The barmaid soon discovered Patrick had money to spend and came frequently to his table to refill their glasses.

  The men bantered with each other and bragged upon themselves. Then with his mind laced with brandy fumes, Jacklin took offense at something Patrick said. They fought, but a very short fight it was. Jacklin, though a strong man, was no match for Patrick. Soon Jacklin lay bleeding and unconscious upon the floor at Patrick’s feet.

  Patrick buttoned his coat that had been torn open by Jacklin during the fight. He had made a mistake by coming to the tavern armed. He left quickly, untied his horse from the hitching post and pulled himself astride. From old habit, he glanced back as he rode off.

  A man had followed him outside and stood looking after him. He could have easily seen Patrick’s pistols and know what they could mean. Now he had seen the gray horse. Patrick sensed the intense interest in the sinister figure’s scrutiny of him. However should the man be a thief-taker he was too late for Patrick would never again rob a man.

  CHAPTER 20

  Patrick began spending his days at the waterfront with its giant warehouses and long stone piers always crowded with berthed ships, and many other ships at anchor waiting for a space to dock. A thrill ran through him every time he saw a ship inbound heavily loaded with unknown cargo and riding low in the water, its hull above waterline white with salt crystals and sails heavily stained and the tears caused by fierce winds patched with newer canvass that stood out like snow upon dark soil. Giving him equally pleasure were the ships outbound, loaded with cargo and riding low, but with their tough oak hulls freshly painted, and new canvas sails almost white propelling them onward to a port on some distant shore. He liked the sailing ships best for with their clean lines and tall masts carrying acres of sail they were the beautiful ones as compared to the broader beamed steamers that left a black rope of coal smoke from their boiler fires trailing for a mile behind them.

  As he wandered the waterfront, a problem worried him. He lacked the knowledge to properly evaluate which ship and commanded by what captain he should buy shares in. Should he chose wrong, he could lose all of his money for it was known that frail ships sank and crooked captains robbed investors. He saw no ready solution to his problem.

  One day as he walked along the quay among the host of men and vehicles scurrying about moving cargo, he came upon a ship the likes of which he didn’t know existed. The vessel had both steam engine and three tall masts for sails.

  “She’s a strange creature, isn’t she,” spoke a man walking past.

  “That she is,” Patrick replied as he turned to see who spoke.

  The man stopped beside Patrick. He was dressed as a ship’s officer. Streaks of gray showed in his black beard and the hair that showed from under his billed seaman’s cap. His face was brown and creased from sun and wind. Patrick thought he represented a fine picture of a ship’s officer.

  “Some ship owners, and many captains, don’t trust steam engines alone,” said the seaman. “So they have ships with both steam and sail. Then if the engine stops, they raise sail and off they go again. Also if the wind is strong and blowing in the right direction, the sails help the engine take the ship right along. Or they don’t use the engines at all and save the coal. Sometimes the engines quit or blow a boiler. But engines are getting better all the time and one day there won’t be sailing ships.”

  “Are they more profitable than sailing ships?”

  “Not often for they have all that extra weight of engine and coal to haul along. And also there’s the cost of the coal. And they are God awful ugly, not beautiful like the clippers.”

  “I think so too. Which sailing ship that’s in port is the best one in your opinion?”

  “One of the best would be the Sovereign of the Seas and commanded by Captain Henry Warner. That’s her just over there.” The man pointed with a jab of his thumb at a tall three-masted ship two piers over.

  “You thinkin’ about going to sea?”

  “Yes.”

  “I did when about your age. Worked my way up from seaman to captain by the time I was thirty.”

  Patrick thought the captain was bragging, or was he merely telling what a young man could accomplish. “What would be a second choice for a sound ship with a good captain to sail on?”

  “I’d say the Pudsey Dawson. James Davies is her captain. She just arrived a few hours ago after five weeks at sea from South Carolina in America with cotton and tobacco. That’s her unloading that third warehouse down there.” Again he gave a thrust of his thumb.

  The man started to leave. Then he turned back. “By the way, I’m James Davies captain of the Pudsey Dawson. See me before you sign on with Captain Warner. I could use a strong young man.”

  “When are you sailing next time?”

  “In three weeks.”

  “Where too?”

  “To South Carolina in America for another load of cotton and tobacco. Well I’ll get along with my walk for I haven’t been on shore for five weeks.” The captain lifted his hand in half salute and strolled off along the quay.

  Patrick hastened to the Shippers and Merchants Bank and arranged for the bank to invest his savings in equal shares of the Sovereign of the Seas and the Pudsey Dawson. That night at the farm, he slept the sleep of a man who believes he has made a profitable business deal.

  *

  Patrick galloped the gray horse along Ratcliff Road. He had left London behind and was passing by farm fields separated by fences and groves of trees. He was making the final ride before sailing away on the Pudsey Dawson with Captain Davies. Knowing it would be the last time on horseback for months, the strong back of the gray between his legs and the gentleness of its stride upon the earth seemed especially pleasant.

  He passed through Blackheath Station. On the outskirts of the village, he came upon a horse patrol of constables. He nodded hello as he rode by, and was glad that he was no longer a highwayman. In the dusk of the evening, Patrick reined his mount back along the road toward London. He lazed in the saddle as he leisurely rode through the countryside and thinking of the sea voyage that would begin in three days. The sea should provide many new adventures.

  As he rounded the first bend in the road, he came upon four riders not but a long pistol shot distant. One of the men shouted and pointed. By their actions, Patrick knew they were thief-takers and had trailed him from the city. The men drew their pistols and ran their horses straight at Patrick. They fired without warning, their pistols exploding like bright red stars in the murk of the early night. They were trying to shoot and kill him and deliver his corpse to the constabulary for the bounty money.

  Patrick whirled his horse about and raced away from the crashing guns of the thief-takers. He heard the lead balls of the pistols whizzing past like angry, deadly wasps. He bent low over the saddle and urged the gray to its top speed. His fleet mount would outrun his enemies and he would escape in the growing darkness.

  Even as the thought came, he felt the gray horse staggered as a speeding bullet drove deep into its lungs. The gallant horse regained its stride and ran valiantly on with its lifeblood pumping out onto the dust of the road.

  The gray gradually slowed, and finally came to a stumbling halt. It stood trembling with its legs splayed. Patrick leapt clear as the horse collapsed in death upon the road. It had given its heart to its master.

  Patrick whirled to face his foes. As he considered escaping by running into the forest that lay bordering the road, bullets from the thief-takers pistols burned the dusk toward him with hot streaks of incandescence.

  “Damn you for killing my horse,” he shouted at the swiftly approaching thief-takers. He could not bring himself to run. They were heartless men and had earned death.

  He drew his pistols and chose the lead rider fo
r his first shot. He fired his right hand pistol and the man collapsed over his saddle. The man clutched the pommel, but his grip failed and he slid sideways from the saddle and rolled and tumbled on the ground.

  Patrick raised the gun in his left and took aim at the next closest man bearing down upon him. His bullet went true to its target and knocked the man backward off his horse. With both pistols empty, Patrick spun about and dashed toward the forest.

  The two remaining riders charged down upon Patrick through the evening gloom. Pistol shots boomed behind him and lead balls came streaking. A bullet struck him in the side and knocked him reeling and down onto the ground. He struggled to hands and knees and crawled toward the woods. His arms and legs trembled, his strength leaking away with the blood staining the ground. He heard running footsteps. A smashing blow landed upon his head and drove him flat on the ground. The world vanished in a whirlpool of blackness.

  *

  After five days in the infirmary of the constabulary, Patrick had recovered sufficiently from his wound to stand trial. The jailors secured his hand with manacles and took him before the judge, a bewigged man in a scarlet robe behind the high court bench. The two thief-takers that had lived to take Patrick prisoner told their tale of Patrick killing two of them, and how they knew he was a highwayman. Other witnesses were called to identify Patrick as a highwayman. Charles Langdon’s graybeard servant Albert, swore with out reservation that Patrick was the man who had robbed his master. Langdon himself was traveling in France and unable to testify.

  Patrick was found guilty. The judge called for him to stand for sentencing. He listened to the judge’s sermon on thievery, and overall wickedness and sin. Then the judge pronounced sentence upon him. “It is therefore ordered and adjudged by this court that you be transported upon the seas from this land to such place as His Majesty, by the advice of His Privy Council, shall think fit to direct and appoint, for the term of your natural life.”

  In London, Patrick and two hundred and thirty eight other convicts were taken aboard the Vimeira for transport to Melbourne. The ship was a full-rigged clipper ship with three masts and built of teak and oak. She was 168 feet long and weighed 925 tons. She carried a cargo of iron goods; plows, harrows, hay rakes and scores of other implements and house wares for the colonies down-under. The ship’s captain was Isaac Swanson. The first port-of-call was made three weeks later at Tenerife, Canary Islands. A second port call for supplies was made at Cape Verde Islands. Cape Town, South Africa was the third stop. Then an easterly leg of 6,500 miles brought the ship to Melbourne. The total voyage was 18,000 miles and required 87 days.

  CHAPTER 21

  Above the chop of the sea, Patrick heard the Marine sergeant shout, “Scanlan, does the water cool your hot temper?”

  Patrick didn’t respond to the taunt. He continued on with his government stroke and drove his mind deeper into his memories and away from the Marines and the burning lash cuts on his back.

  Patrick had thought the sentence of being transported to the penal colony in Australia would be better than ending up choking on the gallows at the end of a hangman’s noose. He had been very wrong. The penal colony on Van Diemen’s Land was far worse than any possible hanging. The rope would have brought death swiftly. Already he had spent four years, a very long lifetime, in the island hellhole.

  “The day’s finished.” The Marine sergeant called out above the splash of the scowling waves of the sea. “Convicts, come out of the water and stow your tools in the chest. Quick now.”

  Patrick raised his weary head. The red, swollen sun lay half drown on the far off ocean horizon.

  “Scanlan, time for you to go enjoy the comforts of the dumb-cell,” the sergeant said and gave a wicked laugh.

  Patrick didn’t look at the Marine. It was all he could do to make his legs carry him. He had reached the limits of his strength. The commandant was on the verge of breaking him. Now to be put soaking wet into the frigid dumb-cell would very likely kill him.

  *

  Patrick knew death lurked in the darkness of the dumb-cell for he had witnessed the burial of many of its victims. He had never thought it would conquer him. Now as he weakened from his wounds and starvation, he felt the presence of death, smelled its rank odor, a stink so thick that it had a palpable density. He raised his head from the stone floor where he lay and looked about. He saw it, a horribly distorted form blacker than the darkness and squatting in the end of the cell just beyond Patrick’s feet.

  Patrick shook his fist at death and shouted at it. “Goddamn you. You won’t get me for I’m too tough to die.”

  Patrick saw his shouts held death motionless, and he gave it a knowing grin and laughed. “I know your weakness. You can’t come and get someone who’s looking you right in the face.” His voice rose to a shout. “Right in the face. Right in the face.” Patrick chanted the words on and on until he lost consciousness.

  Sometime later Patrick roused from his faint with his mind clear but again with the horrible certainty that he was going to die in the dumb-cell. He tried to move to prove to himself that he still had strength, but his body seemed pressed to the cold floor as if the blackness of the cell had immense weight. His heart felt squeezed and beat but feebly. A man’s determination to live could carry him just so far. The odds were heavily stacked against him surviving another day. On Van Diemen’s Land even the All Mighty Deity deserted a man.

  Patrick’s days confined within the frigid dumb-cell had crept past with him in a stupor from his wounds and hunger. He kept wrapped in the scrap of blanket as best he could but still he was always cold. At times he shivered so hard that he thought his chattering teeth would break. Now and again the tightly fitting panel in the bottom of the door would scrape open and a chunk of hard, moldy bread and a tin of water was shoved inside. That had done almost nothing to satisfy his hunger. Then he lost all desire for food. He had neither eaten nor drank the last two times the panel had opened.

  The scrape of wood on stone sounded as the door of the dumb-cell was dragged open. Through the doorway, the frail rays of a winter sun poured into the dumb-cell. The blackness fled, streaming away and disappearing into its hiding place in the cracks and crevices of the walls of the dumb-cell. He looked for death. It had fled with the darkness.

  “Scanlan, your time in the cell is completed,” a man’s coarse voice called from outside. “Come out of there if you’re still alive.”

  Patrick’s breath began to come in quick gasps. The beat of his heart strengthened and his blood flowed faster. He rejoiced knowing he had defeated death. Or had death just retreated for now and would catch him next time. He raised his trembling hands to shield his eyes from the sun’s rays that pierced them like needles.

  Patrick clasped his hands over his eyes and peered between the fingers trying to see into the blinding light. Had he really heard a human voice? Was the bright light from the sun, or the flames of hellfire?

  “Scanlan, did you hear me?” the man shouted again. “Come out or I’ll shut the door on you for another day for refusing to obey an order.”

  “I’m coming,” Patrick croaked, forcing his dry vocal cords to form the words. The Marine meant exactly what he said and Patrick could not survive another day in the cell.

  He rolled to his stomach, and straining mightily, struggled to his knees. He hung there striving to muster enough strength to crawl. He willed his starved and crippled body to move. Dragging his heavy leg irons, he crawled out through the open doorway.

  He heard a laugh and the same voice spoke. ”You should always be down on your knees for you’re nothing but a goddamned trouble maker.”

  Patrick looked up at the hard countenance of the Marine sergeant and silently cursed him. He put out a hand and caught hold of the stone wall. It required his most strenuous labors to pull himself to his knees and half erect. He hung there grasping the wall with fumbling hands. On up, old boy! Stand on your feet like a man. You can do it. Concentrate on the sunlight. Isn’t its warmt
h a fine balm on your frozen body? And the fresh air is sweet as roses in your lungs. On up! On up!

  With a supreme effort, Patrick climbed to his feet and pushed away from the wall. He gave the Marine a grin. I’m still alive and nobody had to carry me after being flogged with a hundred lashes and enduring ten days on bread and water in the freezing dumb-cell.

  “God, what a filthy, stinking sonofabitch you are,” the sergeant said with disgust and backed away.

  He spoke to his corporal. “Take two men and march him over to the hospital. The doctor will want to see him now that he’s come out of the dumb-cell still breathing. Then afterwards, take him to the barracks.”

  “Scanlan, march,” the corporal commanded.

  Patrick willed his right leg with its heavy leg-iron to move and it reluctantly obeyed. His left leg required even more concentration and will power before it slid forward a few inches. Barely staying erect and with his irons clanking, he shuffled off ahead of the Marines. I have survived, he exulted silently. Realizing just how close his death had been, he felt wetness in his eyes and lowered his head so that the Marines couldn’t see them.

  *

  The daylight had barely overcome night when Patrick’s work gang of twenty shuffled from the mess hall and out into the cold winter rain. Within a few steps, the wetness had penetrated his thin jacket and plastered it to his skin. He felt ill with a fever and a thundering headache. Two days rest and food had been far from sufficient for him to recover from the flogging, the infection of the wounds, and two weeks of starvation. A strange emotion had come upon him in the barracks during the night; the snoring of the other convicts sleeping close by his bunk had been a pleasant sound for it proved he was truly alive. Never before had he possessed a greater awareness of life and its incalculable value.