The Convicts Read online

  I felt the ship touch the bottom, then roll away and touch again. The chaplain squinted at his Bible, his wisps of hair shining like a halo in the lamplight. I hoped he wouldn't hate me when he learned that I'd been tunneling from his chapel. I wished I could say goodbye. But I left in silence with the othersr, feeling all atingle with excitement and dread. I would soon be out on the marshes, and the thought of that pleased me very much. But I would soon be alone, and the thought of that disturbed me.

  I didn't like to admit it, but I would miss little Midgely. It would be a hard thing to leave him in the marshes and hurry on without him. But Ms usefulness was over now. I would find a place for him to hide, and tell him, “Now wait here while I look ahead. Wait until I call.” I wondered how long he would lie there before he realized I would never call.

  Selfish, I told myself Yes, it was so. But if the hulk had taught me anything, it was that I had to look out for myself. Dog eat dog, that was the rule.

  I followed in the line from the chapel to the place where I always sat with Midgely. I heard the voices, the whispers, and saw the little crowd gathered in the corner. And I knew right away that something was terribly wrong.

  Midgely was curled into a tight ball, rocking himself on the tilted deck. “Where's Tom?” he was saying. “Where's Tom Tin?”

  I rushed to his side. Around us stood the boys, Weedle on my left, Penny on my right.

  “Help me, Tom,” said Midge.

  I fell beside him; I held him. His small hands groped toward me. His eyes were closed, and covered with blood— with blood and more. Tears and pus and a red-stained jelly glued his eyelids shut.

  “It hurts, Tom,” he said. “It hurts like the devil, it does.”

  I tried to wipe away the blood and wetness. His eyes felt squishy, soft as rotted fruit. Benjamin Penny leaned over my shoulder, breathing fast, hoarse breaths. He shuddered as I lifted the lids of Midgely's eyes.

  They were punctured, those eyes. They were collapsing, dribbling their fluid through jagged holes. I knew in a flash why the needle had been stolen from our table.

  “I didn't cry out,” said Midge. “Not a sound. I was a meek, Tom.” His hands pressed at my chest like a cat's paws. “You would have been proud of me.”

  Just behind him, his hands at his sides, Weedle was standing and watching. On his face was the same dark look he always wore, twisted by his scar into a smile of wicked pleasure.

  I leapt at him. I knew exactly what I was doing, and just what I was giving up to do it. If it meant I would spend seven years on the hulk, it didn't matter at all right then. I sprang up, over Midgely and across the floor, through the ring of boys. I grabbed Weedle by the throat.

  He staggered back; I pressed toward him. I trampled on his irons and pushed again, and down we went, slamming to the floor, I put all my weight on his neck, and drove his head against the wood. I heard him gasp and choke. His feet kicked in a rattle of chains; his fists bished at my ribs. But I didn't let go. I would never let go, I thought.

  Poor Midge called out, ‘Tom! Oh, Tom, what are you doing?”

  A rage throbbed in my head. My blood roared like heavy surf, and my breath came in great walloping grunts. As though from very far away, I heard Benjamin Penny laugh. “There's the old Smashy,” he cried. “It is you; it's you after all. Kill him, Smashy. Kill him!”

  It was just what I wanted to do. I wanted it with all my heart. But the commotion brought a guard, and at the sound of his boots thumping along the deck, the boys pulled us apart. It took every boy in the ward to pry me away, and still I struggled against them.

  Penny cackled as Weedle went scuttling back to the wall. “Cooked his goose!” he cried. “You did it, Smashy!”

  The hot rush in my head turned to a spreading chill. Yes, I had done it. I had nearly throttled the life from a boy. I was glad—almost proud—that I had at last stood up for myself and for Midgely, but what I had done left me cold. I saw then that I was as savage as any other, no better than the worst of them. The Smasher and I were one and the same.

  When the guards arrived, Weedle was sobbing in the corner. He raised a hand and pointed at me. “It was him,” he said. “He's the one what did it” Right there and then I was hauled off to the Overseer, up through the rain and wind.

  The ship was firmly on the bottom, leaning at an angle that made the guards seem strangely out of balance as they dragged and pushed me along. With the rain stinging in my eyes I peered off at the marshes, where the water broke in a pale line of white surf. The muddy shore had never seemed closer.

  The Overseer didn't bother to open his door. He only shouted through it, “What's his name? What's he done?”

  “It's Tom Tin, sir,” said the guard. “He was fighting.”

  I heard the Overseer grunt. “You can cage a beast, but you can't make him tame,” he said. “Mark him for punishment in the morning.” My heart rose for a moment, then sank again when he added, “And double his irons tonight.”

  It looked like miles of chains that the negro blacksmith came dragging down the deck. He fastened them on, and I staggered below with nearly fifty pounds of metal on my legs. I couldn't even climb into my hammock. Instead, I lay on the hard wood of the deck as the guards locked us down. Then I struggled to my feet and shook Midgely.

  “Tom?” he asked, his hands reaching up. I took them, and held them. I said, “It's time.”

  “I can't see,” he said. “Leave me, Tom, and go on your own.”

  I had gotten exactly what I wished. It was as though he had been blinded only because I'd hoped to be rid of him. And now I couldn't do it. “I'm taking you with me,” I said. “I won't leave you behind.”

  He smiled. “I don't mind, Tom. I know you didn't want me along.” His voice sounded more childlike, more slurred than ever. “Nobody doesh, Tom. Nobody ever wantsh me.”

  I was ashamed. “That's nonsense, Midge,” I said.

  “No, it ain't.” He shook his head. “Me dad didn't want me, Tom. He left me. Me mam turned me out. I don't mind anymore; it's all right.”

  “I'll carry you,” I said, and meant it. Even dragging fifty pounds of metal, I would carry him and his irons too, all the way to London. “Now come on, Midge. I'll help you.”

  His eyes were such a mess that I couldn't tell, in the gloom of the ship, if they were open or closed. I scooped him from his hammock and brought him to the deck, and he held on to my neck like a baby. “Blesh you, Tom,” he said.

  From Weedle we had nothing to fear. He was sobbing in his hammock, and even his shabby gang left him alone. My only worry was Benjamin Penny. Below the swaying canvas he was already coming toward us with his scuttling, monkeylike gait. With hand and hip, he lurched and slid across the deck.

  “Who's that?” asked Midgely.

  “Only Penny,” said I.

  “No! Tell him he can't,” said Midge. “I don't want him with us.” He tugged at my shirt “Send him away.”

  Penny said nearly the same thing of Midge when he rattled up to my side. “Where you going wiff Aim?” he asked. “It's always me and you, Smashy.”

  Midgely didn't argue, but his hands kneaded and pressed. A nasty little plan formed in my mind, the sort of thing I imagined the Smasher might have dreamed up. “We're all going,” I said in a whisper. “All of us together.”

  Oten Acres was waiting by the edge of the hammocks. Our shirts wrapped around our chains, the four of us trekked through the ship. Midgely and I went hand in hand, but blind or not, he knew the way as well as I.

  In the chapel I uncovered the hole; I threw the panel aside. Oten took up our sad lot of tools and went at the wood with his thinned arms. I waited for a wall of water to come bursting in upon us.

  Oten held the spike like a chisel. He drove it against the wood a hundred times before it went right through. He pierced the plank, and only air came in. Cool and fresh, it smelled of trees, of mud, of freedom, in a way. The farm boy widened the hole. He put his face to the jagged edge he'd made and
breathed deeply for a moment. Then he drew back with his hair wet from the rain. He was smiling. “Thank you, Tom,” he said.

  He ripped through the wood, smashing the planks. When the hole was wide enough he moved aside to let me look.

  The river was no more than a foot from the edge of the hole. Distant waves leapt in the wind, but here the river was sheltered. I couldn't see the marshes, but I heard the surf squishing at their edge, and the snicker and scythe of the long-bladed grass bending in the wind.

  “Are there lights? Are there sentries?” asked Midge.

  “Nothing,” said I. “It's like looking into a kettle.”

  I used one of the canes to test the river's depth. I leaned from the hole, reaching far into the water, but felt no bottom.

  The ship was leaning steeply now. Once we dropped clear we could never come back. It was on to the marshes or drown. I gave the other cane to Midgely.

  “Penny goes first,” I said.

  Penny was pleased, but Midge not at all. “He didn't do no digging/Why does he go first?” he said.

  “ ‘Cause he knows how I can swim,” said Penny. “Like a fish, ain't I, Smashy?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “That's right.” I even gave him a pat on his twisted shoulder as I thought how nasty and cunning I was. If Benjamin Penny made it to shore, then all of us could. And if

  he didn't, well I would rather lose him than Oten, and I

  would never let Midgely go first.

  Penny pulled himself to the hole. “See you in London, Smashy,” he said. And out he went feetfirst. For a moment he hung by his fingers as the current pulled him away. Then the webs of skin spread open, and down he sank.

  I flew to the hole and saw his hands disappearing into that frightful darkness. I imagined him falling to the bottom, then crawling toward the marshes—would he know which way it was? I neither saw nor heard him reach the shore.

  Oten was next. He put his broad shoulders through the hole and didn't wait another instant Headfirst he dove to the river, his feet dragging across the floor. But his irons jammed against the planks, leaving him dangling there with the water churning in his struggle. I picked up his chains, his ankles, and heaved him out.

  Only Midgely was left with me then. His eyes were still pasted shut, but he groped his way to the hole, and out from the ship, until he hung from the edge as Penny had done. With one hand he gripped the wood, and with the other he took the hollow canes. He even found a way to help me out, though the water made him gasp and shudder. He tucked the canes in his shirt, freeing his hand to pull at my irons, to drag them through the hole.

  Cold as ice, the river swallowed my feet, my legs, my waist, and my chest. The rain soaked the rest of me; the irons dragged me down. I held on to the ship and gazed up its side, unwilling to let go. I was certain that I would plummet straight to my death, that my cane wouldn't reach the surface, that the currents would tear me away from Midge.

  I could feel him shaking. Already my feet were numb from the cold, and I knew we could wait no longer, Midgely passed me one of the canes. I put the end in my mouth, and he did the same with his. We held hands, my fingers enclosing his whole fist, and a memory of my sister came clearly to my mind; her hand had been just the same size.

  “Don't let me go,” said Midge.

  We dropped into the river. Water slammed at my ears as it closed above my head. I felt myself falling. The cane buoyed up, then sprang from my lips and shot toward the surface. Soon my chains settled on the bottom.

  In desperation, I tried to run, to haul myself somehow to the surface. But the irons held my feet, and Midgely held my hand, and I felt panic overwhelm me. I was living all the nightmares I'd ever had of the sea, of drowning. Yet the worst of them had been nothing compared to the fear I felt now.

  I bent my knees and sprang forward. I hopped across the riverbed, once and twice, until my swollen lungs felt as though they'd burst. I tried to reach the surface, but Midgely pulled me down. He was dragging me to my doom, I thought, until my flailing hand found the stones on the river bottom. Then I pulled at one and inched along, and my breath exploded in a great bujbble. My £hest pulsed and heaved as I pulled myself forward. I found a chain and, in my panic, let go of Midge to grab it.

  I drew up my legs and reached higher. In my breathless-ness I couldn't make sense of what came into my hands. It moved wherever I touched it, swaying and sinking. Soft in places, hard in others, it felt like a great sea plant covered in loose and leafy skin. I hauled myself up, pushing the thing down until my head broke the surface. I gasped deep breaths.

  The ship was only yards away, an enormous wall of wood. A lamp was burning above the deck, swinging in a globe of golden, shining rain. The marshes were even closer. I could see Midgely sprawled at their edge, his knees and feet in the water, his hands grabbing at the grass.

  Then I saw what held me up. The thick tendrils were arms and fingers, the fronds a person's hair. Oten Acres, the poor farmer's boy, floated in the river, moored by his chains. His arms weaved round and over each other, as though he swam in the current.

  I nearly shouted in my horror. But I gathered my wits and held on, and his head lolled in the current, tipping sideways. I saw his face below the surface. It wore a look of pleasure, of peace and contentment. The mouth was smiling, the eyes closed, and I could see that Oten—for a moment, at least— had found his freedom.

  I rested as I held him. Then I hopped and crawled and dragged myself up from the river to Midgely's side. He cried out when I touched him, and sobbed at the sound of my voice. “I thought I'd lost you, Tom,” he said.

  There was no sign of Benjamin Penny, and we spared him no thought. We squirmed through the mud, a dozen yards into the grasses, then stopped in exhaustion. There, sodden and frozen, we huddled together as the wind swept the blades of grass, as the rain pelted our faces.

  The morning came slowly. We smelled the smoke from the ship's cooking fire, then heard the bell across the water. Soon came the tramping feet and the irons ringing, the shouts of the guards as they hurried the boys. In our nest in the marshes, I wondered if Midgely felt the same as I, if he wished himself back on the ship just then. My teeth were chattering, my hands shaking, but as miserable as I was, Midgely must have been worse. His eyes looked like old, half-rotten potatoes— shrunken and soft. A tarry mass glued them shut.

  I washed them for him, scooping water from the ground. I wet his eyes as gently as I could, then pried them open. Midgely winced but never cried. “I can see you, Tom,” he said. “You're just a smudge, Tom. All I see is smudges.”

  “You'll get better,” I said, though I didn't believe it. His eyes were gray and lifeless.

  I hated to make him get up and move along. But I was eager to make distance from the ship, and couldn't wait for Midge to rest. Even as I nudged him, a great commotion rose on the hulk, and the air filled with shouts. Almost instantly came the shocking bang of a cannon. The blast thudded in my ears.

  “That's the signal,” said Midgely. “Now the soldiers will come.”

  “We have to get moving,” I told him.

  “Ain't we going to hide right here?” he asked. “Ain't that your plan?”

  It was what I had told him we would do. I had hoped he would dig himself into the mud, where the soldiers would find him right away. Anything that slowed the soldiers down would help me get away. That had been my plan.

  “I've had a change of heart,” I said. “Come on, Midge.”

  My idea that I could stroll away through fields of grass seemed pathetic now. We had to slither and crawl, dragging more weight in irons than Midgely weighed himself. We found ourselves stuck in the gummy mud, and the soldiers coming already. Between tufts of grass I saw their boats scudding down the river from the naval yard. Three abreast, five more behind, they came in puffs of spray and flashing oars.

  “Huffy, Midge,”! said.

  Through the grass and through the rain, I dragged myself and Midgely too. I hauled him over hummocks,
into puddles, round dusters of grass too thick to go through. He shivered and panted. “It ain't no use,” he said. “Go on by yourself.” But I told him more lies; they came easily now. I told him there were trees ahead, a place to shelter, though all I really saw was grass and more grass. It stretched on forever, it seemed.

  We hadn't gone very far when the soldiers landed. I could still see -the masts of the Lachesis, and I heard very plainly the long, drumming rattle as the soldiers fixed their bayonets. I heard the scratchy sizzle as they waded through the grass behind us. “Hurry, Midge,” I said.

  We crawled like lizards, with our bellies in the mud. When Midge could go no farther, I had him climb on my back and I carried him along. The soldiers came steadily, and the cannon boomed from the ship, and my hands were cut raw by the grasses. I pulled and pushed us along, snaking through the hollows. I thought we would nWer get out of the marsh, But finally, I swept the rushes aside and saw we had come to the edge.

  “Why have you stopped?” asked Midgely, clinging to my back. I could feel him shaking with the cold, and hear the chatter of his teeth. “What do you see?” he said.

  I didn't want to tell him. The marsh lay behind us, yet what stretched ahead was worse. Right before me, on either side, flowed water deep and gray. It churned in a current even stronger than the one that tugged at the Lachesis Plumed with whitecaps, dotted with fishermen's boats, it was wider than London's grandest streets.

  “What's the matter, Tom?” asked Midgely.

  “Oh, Midge, we're on an island.”

  I wasn't sure if he laughed or sobbed. Perhaps the sound he made was a bit of both. “Well, we tried, Tom,” he said.

  It might have been a kindness to him if I had stood up and waved my arms to bring the soldiers. It was surely what he wanted me to do. But I had gone too far to give up.

  Out on the river the fishermen's boats rolled and pitched. Only one was working, and it was tearing toward us, a man in the middle rowing like the devil straight against the wind. It plunged through clouds of spray; the oars shed streams of water. Heaped around the rower was a net, and sitting on the top of it was a small figure wrapped in oilskins.