The Highwayman

by F. M. Parker

  “What in hell are you talking about? After what I’ve done, they’ll kill me. You said you wanted to see your wife and kid.” Patrick had put heavy pressure on Swallow to get his agreement and now the man was on the verge of changing his mind.

  “I do. Oh, I do want to see them. But can we make it?”

  “I can’t give you a guarantee?” Patrick’s said roughly. Time was running out.

  “I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Damn it, Swallow, it’s too late to back out now. Let’s get on with it.” Patrick stepped close to Swallow.

  “All right then.”

  “That’s better. No more talk about quitting.”

  The loud and piercing clang of iron striking iron swept over the waterfront. Both men gave a sudden jerk. The powerful sound of the bell seemed to send ripples through the foggy darkness around the men. It clanged on and on with ear-jarring volume.

  “That’s the great bell on top of the Prisoner’s Barracks giving the general alarm. Now every person in Sydney will know there are convicts loose. There’ll soon be Marines on every pier and patrolling the streets. Owners of boats and horses will be checking on them. We have only minutes before some of the Cockrells come here. There’s a place in the back where the fishermen repair the boats and nets. Come with me. We’ll use their tools to knock your irons off.”

  Swallow turned and led inside. He picked up the lamp as he passed the desk and led onward through a door and into a large, high ceiling room. One wall had a wide double door so that the smaller fishing boats could be hauled inside for repair. A second workbench held tools for boat repair. A mound of nets neatly rolled and ready for use lay on the floor. Foul weather coats and hats and sea boots of the fishermen hung on hooks fastened to a wall.

  “Sit down and I’ll knock the rivets out of your irons,” Swallow said and pointed at a wooden table with chairs beside it. He picked up a hammer and steel punch.

  Patrick seated himself on a chair and placed his manacled hands on top of the table. “I’m ready. Have at it.“

  Swallow laid the end of the punch against the head of a rivet in the manacles and raised the hammer over it. “Brace yourself for this could hurt.”

  Patrick laughed. “Hit it and the pain be damned.”

  He was still laughing when Swallow with strong blows with the hammer had driven the last rivet from the wrist manacles. Swallow moved to Patrick’s leg-irons and began to hammer anew.

  When the irons fell to the floor, Patrick kicked the hated things into a corner. He sprang to his feet and danced a lively jig around the room. He circled back and scooped Swallow up in his arms and jigged on kicking and stamping the floor in wild and happy abandonment.

  Patrick halted and sat Swallow down and beamed at him. “God, how free I feel. I’ll never wear iron again.”

  “We’d better hurry.”

  “Right you are.” Patrick speedily removed his clothing and jerked on the warm Marine uniform made of thick, warm wool. He was taller than the Marine and part of his shanks showed above his convict’s shoes. He tossed his prison coat and pants to Swallow. “Here, put this on over your other clothes for you’ll need it where we’re going.”

  Swallow drew the coat and pants on over his. Both garments hung loosely on his small frame. He rolled up the sleeves and the pants legs.

  “Let’s choose a boat and get shut of this place,” Patrick said.

  Swallow lit a storm lantern and led out through the double doors to the dock. He held up the light and Patrick saw eight sailboats tied in twos, side by side, and fastened to the private dock. Four were of the same make and size. All were designed for fishing in the bay. Farther along the dock were much larger boats that went onto the sea for fish. They would be too much boat for Patrick and Swallow to row getting out of the harbor, which they would have to do for not a breath of wind stirred the fog.

  “This eighteen-footer has a new mast and sail,” Swallow said and pointing.

  Patrick evaluated the wooden boat painted white with a narrow strip of red at the gunwale. It carried what he judged to be a twenty-foot mast and mainsail and a twelve-foot jib. The mast was stepped, its base extending down through the center seat and ground in a shallow well constructed on the sole of the boat. Both sails were lowered, the main lashed to its boom, and the jib to the bowsprit. The boat appeared sound, however it was a craft suited only for protected water and not one for the far reaches of the sea that they would have to travel. He wished the boat had a cabin of some sort and not totally open to the weather. The odds of completing their long journey upon the stormy winter sea in this tiny craft were doubtful. He said nothing about that to Swallow. They must make do with what was available to them.

  “Good choice,” Patrick said. “We’ll sail and row as we need to. Where’s the food and water?”

  “In here.”

  Swallow led to a room and swung the door open to show several oilskin wrapped packages on shelves and kegs on the floor. “Food and water. There’s not all that much for the weather’s been bad and the boats don’t go out fishing.”

  Patrick evaluated the items. “There’s not enough here to take us twelve hundred miles to New Zealand, but it’s enough for several days, if we conserve it. We’ll fish and catch rainwater to add to it.”

  They swiftly carried the provisions and a spool of string and a box of hooks from the room to the boat.

  “I’ll get the blankets and mattress from my bed.” Swallow left the lantern on the dock and hastened back inside.

  Patrick took two sets of foul weather gear from hooks on the wall and placed them in the boat. He added a sheet of canvas and lengths of rope. When the sea became rough, he would tie the canvas over as much of the boat as possible to keep out the water that would surely come over them. A metal bucket was included for bailing.

  Swallow returned with the bedding from his bunk and placed it with the mound of items in the boat. He again went inside and shortly reemerged with two boxed objects, something wrapped in oilcloth, and two sheathed knives.

  He handed Patrick one of the knives and held the other items up for him to see. “Compass and sextant in the boxes. A map and navigator guide and tables and matches in the packet. We’ll be able to shoot the sun and know our latitude. But without a watch to give us the time, we’ve no way to calculate longitude.”

  “We can make do with latitude,” Patrick replied. “New Zealand lies east southeast of us and we shouldn’t have any trouble striking it.”

  “Those oars belong to the boat,” Swallow said and indicated the correct pair.

  Patrick put the wooden oars on board, and then snatched up a second pair and tied them to the inside of the boat for spares.

  He listened toward the Prisoners’ Barracks. The bell was now silent. The Marines would have had sufficient time to muster and be moving out at the double quick on their assigned patrol zones. A squad of them could appear on the dock at any instant. Or the Cockrells could arrive.

  “Untie the boat and get in,” Patrick said with urgency.

  Swallow climbed in and sat the lantern on the bottom of the boat and placed a wooden basket over it to hide the light. He seated himself in the stern and took the tiller. “I’m ready to go.” Much doubt hung on his words.

  Patrick stepped into the boat and shoved it away from the dock. The oars were laid quietly in the oarlocks. He took a seat on the rower’s bench in the center of the boat and stroked so that the oars made hardly a sound in the oarlocks and kissed the water gently as they enter it. The dribble of water that fell from the oars when they were raised for the next stroke was no louder than the sound of a fish rising to the surface. Patrick rowed the boat into the foggy darkness lying thick on the bay.

  “I’ve got a map and its eight miles to the harbor mouth,” Swallow whispered. “How fast do you estimate you’ll be rowing? I’ve got to have a close guess if I’m to make the correct turns in the fog and dark.”

  “Say three miles per hou
r, no make it three and a half,” Patrick said. The first task was finding their way out of the harbor. Should they lose their way in the fog, and still be in the harbor at daylight, they would be swiftly captured.

  “I’ll use three and a half. I’ll keep track of time, course, and distance” He opened the box containing the compass and laid it in the light of the lantern.

  “You guide the way and I’ll take the boat where you say,” Patrick said.

  He bent his back to the oars. The scar tissue of his back itched as it stretched to the working muscles. The poor prison diet had robbed him of a portion of his natural strength. Would he have enough to take them to freedom? Yes, he would take them to freedom among the living, or freedom among the dead. He rowed into the fog and darkness.

  CHAPTER 27

  With Swallow at the tiller and steering the boat, Patrick rowed steadily through the fog lying thick on the black water of Sydney Harbor. The cold air was a tonic to his lungs and the oars felt grand in his work calloused hands. The Marines on the boats that would surely come in pursuit could catch them only by chance in such a totally black night. Give him three hours at the oars and he would have the boat on the sea and their odds of escaping would be much increased. He felt intoxicated with the possibility they would succeed by their daring.

  From behind them an angry shouting came skimming across the water. “One of out boats is gone. And Swallow is missing. That little crippled bastard has stole it.”

  “They missed catching us by just two minutes,” Swallow said with relief. “Now this little crippled bastard is going back to England. Patrick, what do you say to that?”

  Patrick liked the change in Swallow’s attitude toward the escape. But deep in his heart, he knew the huge odds against them of ever reaching England, even if they should by the best of good fortune make it to New Zealand. ”We’ll make it, Swallow.” He spoke with conviction for Swallow’s benefit.

  He rowed them onward through the night, with the cold fog forming droplets on his eyebrows and his clothing becoming damp. With his spirits high, the wet and cold bothered him not at all.

  A splinter of light showed as Swallow lifted the basket a crack to check the boat’s heading by the compass. The light quickly vanished as the basket dropped back to cover it.

  “I’ve been counting to estimate time and at three and a half miles an hour I calculate it’s time to make our turn to the east,” Swallow said. “In a little while we’ll turn north, and then later another one back to the east and we’ll be in the open sea.”

  “Then make the turn.”

  “Right.” Swallow swung the tiller.

  Patrick warmed to his work, falling into a rhythm of raising the oars from the water, swinging them toward the bow, dipping them, pulling. He could repeat the stroke again and again, thousands upon thousands of times for the hell of a lifetime of imprisonment drove him from behind and freedom beckoned ahead.

  The greatest danger was being swamped and drowned. The next was getting wet and cold for that would sap their strength and reduce their ability to work and think correctly. He smiled grimly at both possibilities. They were in an eighteen-foot open boat and soon would be on the stormy, wintry sea on a voyage that would require many days, probably several weeks.

  *

  The smoothness of the boat gave way to a pitching motion. The pitching increased steadily and became rough and choppy as they swung easterly for the run up the last leg to the sea. The fog began to thin.

  As Patrick rowed onward the waves grew taller and the boat fell into the troughs with a splash. The fog now lay behind. Overhead a thin half circle moon surrounded by a multitude of bright stars hung in the center of the sky.

  “Fine navigating, my friend,” Patrick said.

  “Now to set a course for New Zealand,” Swallow said and liking the complement.

  “No, not yet. The authorities will come looking for us. They know we have a boat so they’ll send ships, at least two of them for they’ll figure we’ll either go north along the coast, or east toward New Zealand. We must go directly south for a couple of days. Then when we’re most likely clear of the searchers, we’ll turn east to New Zealand. Do you agree to that?”

  “I’m with you on that.”

  “All right then. Lash down our provisions and sleep for a while. The wind is in our face and the sail’s of no use. I’ll row for a few hours to get us away from the harbor mouth. I can steer by the Southern Cross. By the time I’m tired, maybe the wind has changed and we can raise the sail and you can take over.”

  “We did it, we got away,” Swallow said and looking approvingly at Patrick in the pale moonlight. “I’m sorry for holding back there at the first.”

  “We’re two lucky fellows alright.”

  As Swallow bent to the task of tying the supplies to the boat, Patrick began to sing, accenting his words with the stroke of the oars. He felt lighthearted. After years of wearing irons, he was now free of them. Death could lie on the sea, and most likely did. But if so, let it come. He sang on.

  *

  Beneath the drift and prickle of a giant canopy of cold stars, Patrick rowed onward across the wide, wrinkled sheet of the Tasman Sea toward Antarctica. A strange feeling was on him that the sea had waited since time had begun its travel across the stars for him to make his bold bid for escape upon its bosom. The odds of him accomplishing that objective were immense. There would be pursuit for the penal colony officials never gave up easily. That knowledge did not affect the pleasant beat of Patrick’s heart. Contented, he worked on with the oars.

  Patrick held the tiny cluster of stars of the Southern Cross over the bow of the boat and rowed through the weary hours. As the night grew old, the wind gradually increased and swung around to blow from the west. Now and again, spray sprang out of the night sea to rattle on his oilskin coat and striking his face

  In the cold gristle of the early dawn light, the wave tossed sea became visible and Patrick ceased rowing and leaned wearily on the oars. The muscles and tendons of his back ached, and his hands were stiff claws. How many miles had he come? Twenty-five? Thirty?

  He lifted his eyes and scoured the sea. Behind him the coast of Australia was but a low black ridge on the horizon. Ahead there was nothing except the restless water. He sensed just how insignificant Swallow and he were in the immensity of the awesome, lonely winter sea.

  “Swallow, wake up,” Patrick called to the blanket wrapped form in the stern of the boat.

  Swallow sat up and threw off the covering. “Any ships?” he asked and looking hurriedly around.

  “The ocean is ours alone.”

  “That’s what I want to hear.”

  “How much do you know about sailing a small boat?” Patrick said as he took hold of the tiller.

  “Back home when I had money, I owned one about this size and sailed it quite a bit on the Thames. And I had a big house.” Swallow smiled ruefully. “That was before the law came and took everything away.”

  “That’s good. I don’t mean about the money. But about your sailing. Let’s raise the sail.”

  Swallow rose and moved clumsily to the mast. He loosened the ties that held the mainsail to the boom and hoisted it by its halyard and ran the sheet through the block and handed the end to Patrick to tie to its cleat. The block was a pulley attached to the gunwale of the boat and the sheet was the rope by which the helmsman controlled the angle and shape of the sail. Swallow unfurled the jib and extended it upward by its halyard from its foot attached to the bowsprit. The jib’s sheet was also ran through a block and passed to Patrick. The wind caught the sails, put bellies in them and began to pull the boat.

  “Wind’s not good coming from the west,” Swallow said as he took the tiller from Patrick. He cast a measuring eye into the wind coming in over the starboard beam and adjusted the sails to make the best use of it. “But I can get maybe three knots from it.”

  “Do what you can. Wake me if you need help.”

  “You’re not going
to eat something?”

  “I think we should start rationing our food right now. I’ve a feeling this trip will be a damn long one. I’ll eat when I wake up.”

  Patrick moved the mattress and blankets to the bow of the boat so Swallow would have space to steer. He lay down and pulled the cover over him. He slept exhausted, feeling neither the cold nor the motion of the boat.

  *

  Patrick woke with a pale sun hanging half way down the far northern sky. He was stiff and chilled. The wind was colder and stronger and heeling the boat far to port. Large waves capped with white cockscombs rose and fell around them. The boat climbed the steep sides of the waves one after another, to fall with a flutter of sails into the valleys between.

  Swallow sat humped up in wet-weather gear much too big for him. He held the tiller with both hands and his one good leg was braced against the gunwale of the boat. It required all his strength to hold the course against the beam wind.

  Swallow’s red-rimmed eyes caught Patrick’s. “Still running with full sail,” he said proudly. “Making good three knots. Hell, maybe four.”

  “Hang on a few minutes longer while I get a drink and bite to eat and I’ll relieve you.”

  Swallow nodded agreement. “Patrick, can’t we turn east? We’re well clear of Sydney Harbor.”

  Patrick looked to the rear. The land had sunk below the horizon. “I’d like to go a bit farther south. Let’s make our turn at dark.”

  “All right, if that’s what you want.”

  Patrick moved to the provisions. Not one of the packets had been opened. Swallow was waiting for him to eat first. Patrick knocked the bung out of one of the casks and drank a tin cup of the precious water. He poured the cup full again and handed it to Swallow.

  “Thanks, I was getting thirsty.” Swallow drank and handed the cup back.

  Patrick drove the bung back into the cask, and then opened one of the food packets and laid out bread and dried fish for Swallow and himself.