New World Page 10

  “Naturally you’ll need a new identity while you are in America. From the moment you board the Antelope, you are no longer Beth Johnson. You are Lady Johanna Easton, late of Oxford, travelling to assume control of the estate left to you by your deceased uncle. Miss White is to be your maidservant, Maisie Blanchet. Turner will become your manservant, John Briskell—” He stopped and glowered at her before continuing. “That is, if you succeed in freeing him, of course, and do not get yourself captured in the process...”

  “We will succeed,” Beth replied confidently. “And in any case, if I’m to run my own spy ring in America, it’s as well we all start trusting my judgment.” She arched an eyebrow, and Strange let out a short sigh. “Actually,” she continued, “I had a thought. Won’t a noble English heiress attract a lot of attention in the colonies?”

  “Consider it ‘hiding in plain sight’,” Strange said, as if he were rather proud of the idea.

  “So, what if any genuine blue-bloods happen to meet me? What if I eat my quince with the wrong fork or something, and blow the whole show?”

  “I’m sure your acting talents are up to the challenge,” Strange said stiffly. “If there’s anything you’re unsure of, research it. Once you are established in America, your priority, of course, must be to locate Vale. Begin your search in Jamestown. As the first port of call for most British subjects, it seems the likeliest place to run him to ground.”

  At his invitation, Beth opened up the packing crate and took a look at the costumes Strange had had made.

  “Goodness,” she breathed. There was an entire ladies’ ensemble, from the corsetry to the fans, along with combs, make-up and even perfumes. Alongside those were maids’ outfits for Maisie and smart coats and wigs for John. The cost must have been tremendous. There was more money enclosed with the documents, she saw, in a purse marked “expenses”. Strange was clearly wagering a fortune on her success. She thought of the risk she would be courting by breaking John out, and her stomach did a flip-flop. If she were arrested, all this planning would be wrecked beyond hope of salvation.

  She leafed through the documents again, feeling like she was preparing for the most important role she would ever play. Many of them were letters from a “Carstairs”, explaining to Lady Easton what her new position would entail.

  “Carstairs is your family lawyer, and a trusted friend,” Strange explained. “That’s to be my identity in our correspondence. You will write to me once a week. Use the pinprick method to spell out your coded messages.”

  Once a week seemed like a lot. “What should I write about?”

  “Use your imagination. I’m sure you can come up with many reasons why a young girl would be asking her mentor for guidance.”

  Yes, Beth reflected, there would be a lot of improvization to come, and very soon, a rather complicated conversation with Maisie to be had. Plus somehow she had to transform herself from a London actress into a fine lady, with only seven days to rehearse. But there was an even more urgent problem to take care of first...

  * * *

  The transportation ships waited silently out on the middle of the Thames, where the water was deepest. The guards gathered at the railings looked bored. They had no idea that Ralph and Beth were hiding out of sight beneath the nearby landing pier. The two of them crouched on a patch of river bank exposed by the retreating tide, mere feet from the water’s edge.

  They had arrived over an hour ago, when the sun was setting. Now it was long after dark, and Beth’s feet were freezing. The wet river-bank mud sucked at them greedily. Ralph, ever practical, had smeared some of it on their faces to help disguise them, and they had also tied old scarves round their mouths and noses, so they now looked like highwaymen who’d been wrestling in the dirt. Ralph was all but invisible next to her; only the slow sound of his breathing revealed that he was there at all.

  “So many guards,” she whispered. “Ralph, tell me this isn’t crazy.”

  “Wish I could,” Ralph said. “It ain’t the guards on the ships we’ve got to worry about, though. They can’t reach us. It’s the ones on the shore that’s the problem.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “We won’t know until they turn up.”

  “And you’re sure this is the best chance we’ve got?”

  “It’s the only chance. They’ll have to take the prisoners’ chains off to get ’em in the jolly-boats. Once they’re in the convict ship, they’ll be straight back in irons again.”

  Now that she had seen where their rescue attempt would happen, Beth was more anxious than ever. A set of wooden steps descended from the landing pier down to the water and vanished under the surface. That was where the boats would take the prisoners on board. She and Ralph would have to wade into the water to reach John. She prayed it wasn’t deep.

  “Hear that?” Ralph hissed suddenly.

  Beth could hardly miss it. It was the sound of a crowd of people arriving at the harbour, first in dribs and drabs, then in dozens. She’d heard passers-by up above ever since they’d begun their vigil, but this hubbub was new and loud. A creak of wagon wheels in the distance, a clatter of hooves ... something was happening.

  “It’s them!” she whispered. She craned her head round a post to peer up at the dockside. All along the harbour, people had gathered. Many of the women were crying, and the men were mostly shouting at the top of their voices, calling out names: “Timmy!” “Ben!” “Jacko!”

  Then the first of the prison carts came into view. The cart’s high wheels meant Beth got a good clear look at the ragged figures sat together there, bumping over the dockside cobbles a good head and shoulders above the crowd. Her heart in her mouth, she looked from face to miserable face – but none of them was John.

  The screaming and howling from the crowd reached a frenzy. “My boy!” one woman screamed. “He’s innocent, he never done no wrong, let him go!” For a horrible second, Beth thought it was Mrs Turner; but then she saw the guard elbow the woman, knocking her away from the cart. It wasn’t her, but another poor mother watching her son being torn away.

  “Looks like there’s guards on every cart,” Ralph whispered. “This ain’t going to be easy.”

  “They’re bringing them aboard,” Beth whispered back. “Let’s get back under cover. We need to see this!”

  Footsteps tramped on the boards above, echoingly loud. With them came a rattling cacophony as the prisoners’ chains were dragged down the length of the landing pier behind them. Ralph and Beth froze as the first of the convict ships let down its jolly-boat – a long rowboat used to ferry passengers between ship and shore. Two guards rowed it across the water until it came to rest alongside the steps, and a rope was tossed up and made fast to a mooring pole.

  There was a metallic bang and a rattle, a guard gave a gruff order, and the first of the prisoners came tottering down the steps without his chains. He looked around nervously, as if considering a desperate last-minute escape.

  “Get in!” barked the guard on the boat, reaching for the cudgel that hung from his belt. Cowed, the prisoner obeyed. The guard tied his hands with a rope, knotted it tightly and forced him to sit down. Another followed, then another, until the boat lay low in the water with the weight of so many men. Beth stared in horror and pity as the guards began to row, bearing the convicts across the river to the waiting ships.

  “Why don’t they just keep the chains on?” she whispered.

  “Because they’re heavy, and if the transportees fall in and drown, nobody gets paid to ship ’em to America,” said Ralph bitterly. “And because them chains are the property of Bridewell Prison, to be sent back ready for the next load.”

  The boat was halfway to the ship when shouting broke out. One of the prisoners had stood up and was yelling. “Farewell, dear London!” he cried. “Remember old Jacko!”

  The guard cut his speech short with a blow to the back of the head and the man collapsed. A roar of anger went up from the crowd at the harbour.

&nb
sp; “God, a riot’s all we need,” Ralph whispered. “Let’s hope nobody else gets the urge to give a speech!”

  “Can you blame them? They’re leaving their homes and families! They’ll probably never see them again.”

  Beth felt sick at the way the prisoners were being treated. They might be criminals, but they weren’t animals. This wasn’t the England she’d fought to protect.

  For the next half hour they waited, the cries of miserable people ringing in their ears. Families wept and guards dragged women back from the cartloads of condemned men, refusing to grant a final kiss no matter how much screaming and fainting went on.

  “They really are going to have a riot on their hands if they keep this up,” Ralph murmured. “I had no idea it was this bad.”

  Beth shuddered. A riot would mean the Watch coming down in force, and no chance of ever saving John.

  Right at that moment, she saw him. His chains must have just been struck off, because he was reluctantly descending the steps towards the waiting boat. His head was bowed in total defeat.

  “Wait for it,” Ralph told her. “Got to time this just right...”

  “Move!” barked the guard from above them. John increased his pace by the tiniest degree, moving in a slow trudge like the condemned man he was. When he reached the bottom step he raised his head and looked around, as if to check for certain that no rescue was coming after all.

  “Now!” Ralph cried.

  Together they sprinted down from their hiding place, running alongside the pier supports and splashing out into the ice-cold river. John looked around, and his eyes widened as he suddenly realized what he was seeing.

  “Come on!” Beth shouted. The water was up to her thighs, soaking her skirts, adding dangerous weight. Hell with it – she’d tear them off if she had to. John leaped down from the platform and landed in waist-high water.

  The splash seemed to burst open the floodgates of total chaos. The prisoners already in the boat stood up and began shouting encouragement, the crowd at the harbour hollered, and the guards all around shouted orders at one another. A dog barked loudly and someone blew on a whistle.

  John came wading quickly towards Beth. He held his hand out to her, and she reached out to him. Their hands clasped, but the next moment, there was a second splash. One of the guards had followed John into the river, cudgel raised. “Get back here!” he yelled.

  Ralph stepped into his path and lashed out with the speed of a born street fighter. His fist struck the guard’s jaw with a sound like cracking nuts, and the man toppled back against the wooden steps.

  “Run!” Beth shouted.

  Pulling John behind her, she sprinted along the muddy river bank, making for the stone quayside steps she knew were only a few dozen yards away. Ralph ran to catch up with them, cursing. Pinpoint flashes of fire came from the prison ships, and something exploded with a sharp crack just beside Beth’s head.

  “They’re firing muskets!” Ralph yelled. “Run, for God’s sake!”

  They scrambled up the wet stone steps, with the yelling guards close on their heels. But the dockside crowds were surging in now, desperate to see what was going on. Beth suddenly felt a spark of hope – if they could just break through the crowds, they would shake the guards off!

  John’s hand was still locked tight in hers. She wouldn’t let him go, not now, not ever. Without looking back, she plunged into the mass of people swarming at the top of the steps. Hands clutched at her, faces loomed in front of her, and all around was shouting and screaming. A fresh rattle of musket fire came from the ships; there was a shriek, but she couldn’t look to see who’d been hit. She kept going, pushing between the bodies, ignoring the noise.

  Then they were out, running into the shadowed labyrinth of the London streets. A fierce joy seized Beth as she led John and Ralph down a side alley she knew, then through the backyard of an ancient tavern and a cooper’s forecourt before rejoining the main road. She might be a muddy and bedraggled, but this was her territory and she knew it better than anyone.

  On and on they ran, until the pain in Beth’s side was like an open wound and her breaths came ragged and shallow. Only when the three of them were deep into Deptford, and Ralph was trying to tell her between wheezing gasps that the guards had long since been shaken off, did they stop.

  Even then she still held John’s hand in the darkness, defying anyone to snatch him away from her again.

  Chapter Seventeen - May the Circle Be Unbroken

  Beth sat by herself in the back of the tavern, anxiously watching over the three plates of food she’d paid for. She was starting to get odd looks from the other patrons. Why were Ralph and John taking so long? When they finally arrived, she understood.

  “You look like a new man,” she whispered to John.

  “I wish I felt like one,” John said with a weak smile. He was no longer wearing the shabby grey prison clothes he’d escaped in. Instead, he wore a baggy shirt tucked into an old pair of sailor’s breeches. His hair was soaking wet.

  “Told you I’d thought of everything,” Ralph grinned, sitting down. “You should have seen him changing into my old clothes in that alley! We’d have been in a right pickle if the guards had come, me with an armful of prison rags, him with the moonlight shining off his bare—”

  Beth choked. “Ralph, that’s quite enough!”

  “And you know what?” Ralph went on, undaunted. “He’s such a proper little gentleman, he wouldn’t come back to meet you here until he’d been and had a wash at a water pipe.”

  “I’ve never been so dirty in my life as I was in that place,” John muttered. He scratched himself. “I don’t feel like I’ll ever be clean again.”

  “Prison dirt finds its way into all sorts of places,” Ralph admitted.

  “Be honest, Beth. I’m still filthy, aren’t I?”

  “Well...”

  “Come on. We’re moving over there.” John picked up his plate and moved to the darkest corner of the inn, where nobody could see them. Beth and Ralph sighed and went to join him.

  Now he could finally feel safe, John ate like a famished wolf, forgetting his usual manners in his haste to cram food into his mouth. Beth noticed him touching his ankle from time to time, as if he wanted to make sure of something. He saw her noticing and blushed.

  “I can still feel those chains,” he said. “I know they’re gone, but it’s like they’re haunting me.”

  “We’ll never let them do that to you again,” Beth promised.

  John looked down. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

  “She only means we’ll be watching out for one another, once we’re set up in America,” Ralph said through a mouthful of his own food.

  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, of course—” John began, but Beth waved him off.

  “I can’t wait to get going,” she said excitedly. “Now I know we’re all going, and Maisie too, I just wish we could be in America now!”

  “Getting through this week is going to be the real trick,” Ralph said, sounding like he didn’t want to count any chickens. “Don’t forget we’re harbouring an escaped fugitive here. John’s going to have the law breathing down his neck as well as Vale’s hatchet man, whoever he is.” He turned to John. “Don’t suppose you have any more of an idea who Vale’s assassin might be?”

  “No idea at all,” John sighed. “All the time I was in the prison, even when we were in the carts going to the transport ship, I kept looking over my shoulder. I was sure the assassin was going to make a move. But nothing happened.” He sagged in his chair. “I can’t believe I’m out of that death trap at last! Good God, I need to sleep. I haven’t slept in three days.”

  “You’d better doss down with me this week,” Ralph offered. “You can’t go back to your family’s house. That’s the first place the assassin will look.”

  John stiffened. “If he hurts my family—”

  “That won’t happen,” Beth said sternly, laying a gentle hand on his knee. �
�Vale wouldn’t gain anything by it, would he?”

  “I’m not going to get a chance to say goodbye to them, am I?” John said, the truth of it hitting home like a hammer. “It ... it might be years before I see them again.”

  “They’re safe and they have money, and you’re alive,” Beth said firmly. “I made sure Strange got word to them that you are all right. You have to keep that in your mind.”

  John nodded and smiled gratefully at her.

  Ralph cleared his throat. “And if it comes to it, you could always just stay here in London. Strange can’t force you to come to America with us, can he? He could sort you out with a new identity.”

  “No,” John said. “I do want to come. You’re right - my family will be OK. And London’s turned sour on me,” he said with a wry smile. “Plague, hunger, stupid bloody beadles acting like a law unto themselves – give me the land of liberty any day!”

  Beth smiled. “And we’ll still be getting a chance to serve King and Country by getting to that criminal Vale.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Ralph said, raising his tankard.

  But Beth was quietly a little saddened at John’s bitterness. It was as if prison had eaten away what was left of the wide-eyed boy in him, leaving behind a hardened young man. She decided to lighten the mood.

  “Did I mention that you’ll be playing the role of my manservant, John?” she said with a grin.

  John looked to Ralph. “Mind giving me a reference?” he joked.

  Ralph scratched his chin and thought. “Having worked with this young man on many occasions, I can vouch for his high moral character,” he said solemnly. “However, he does often end up in trouble. He badly needs guidance to him on the correct path, like. Just as well I’ll be coming with him, ain’t it?”

  “But I never did ask – what’s your cover story going to be, Ralph?” Beth asked. “I can’t have two manservants, can I?”

  “It’s a sailor’s life for me,” Ralph said with a grin. “Strange sorted me out a position on board the Antelope, as a junior seaman.”