Page 2 of By Marsh and By Moor (Marsh and Moor #1)

“Christ, I needed that,” Jed said, swallowing down the last morsel of pie and examining his handkerchief for any remaining crumbs.

They were sitting on a fallen tree trunk hidden from the road by the hedgerow.

When they stopped to eat, they hadn’t wanted to risk going to a tavern, the press gang’s favourite place to knock unwary seamen over the head.

Fortunately, Solomon had had the remains of a meat pie in his haversack.

They shared it, for which Jed had insisted on giving him tuppence.

The chilly air was heavy with the wet, peaty tang of the salt marshes, and a fine, low-lying mist blanketed the surrounding fields. But Jed was dry and relatively warm, and the pie had filled the hole in his belly.

A twig snapped in the undergrowth nearby. Jed froze, his heart turning over. His whole body had tensed, ready to leap to his feet and run for his life.

A field vole popped its head out from under the hedge. It stared at them for a long moment, its tiny black eyes wide in fear, then swiftly vanished.

Jed breathed out, long and slow. Damn and bugger it. He’d have to rid himself of this nervous tension, or he’d drive himself to Bedlam.

Solomon was sitting with his long legs stretched out in front of him, gazing out across the marsh, a faint frown line between his dark brows.

His hands were wrapped around the gourd he’d filled with water from a stream.

He had long-fingered hands, tanned and strong. Jed wondered what he did for a living.

Jed spread his own hands out in front of him. They were tar-stained and rope-calloused, more so than any landsman’s. Instantly recognisable as seaman’s hands.

“I do beg your pardon,” Solomon said. “I see what I ought to have brung you is a pair of gloves.”

Startled, Jed looked up and found the other man watching him with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“A fine kid-leather pair, and a black silk hat,” Solomon added.

Jed grinned back. “And a smart cloak and a fast horse.”

“I can only humbly beg your forgiveness.”

“A messmate of mine did that, as it happens. Stole an officer’s clothes and thought he would pass as a gentleman when he ran.” His grin faded. “He only got about three miles inland ere they nabbed him.”

“Poor devil. What became of him?”

“Nothing. They don’t hang men for deserting these days, when we’re in such desperate short supply. They only gave him a hundred lashes and sent him back to his messmates with his tail between his legs. He was killed about a week later. Cannonball took his head off.” He shrugged. “Unlucky bugger.”

He’d been determined not to fall into the same trap.

No rash or hasty action. His escape was five years in the planning, starting from the instant he’d been pressed.

Saving money. Learning to swim. Waiting to return to England, instead of running on some foreign shore where an English seaman would stick out like a sore thumb.

He’d lost his savings several times over, through theft or shipwreck, and grimly started again.

He’d spent twelve months on blockade duty off the Isle of Bourbon, with never a day on dry land.

He’d been halfway around the world and back, and seen dozens of far-flung ports.

And never, ever stopped dreaming of escape.

Solomon was studying him with almost troubling perceptiveness.

“I’m not going back,” Jed said fiercely. “I’d rather die.”

Solomon nodded in silent acknowledgement.

Jed got to his feet, brushing dried leaves from his clothes. “There’s a ferry at Combwich, but I’d as lief not venture so close to the sea. I was thinking of going much further upstream and crossing the Parrett at Burrowbridge early tomorrow morning.”

Solomon was still sitting on the log, leaning back, propped up on his hands. He tilted back his head to look up at Jed. “I put myself in your hands.”

“All right. Let’s go, then.”

They walked in silence at first, keeping to the back lanes.

Jed’s heart was full. Everything around him was at once familiar and newly discovered: the flat, fertile land; sunlight glistening on water in the long, straight lines of the rhynes; the friendly rustle of the breeze in the reeds; the bittern’s booming cry.

All seen and heard for the first time in five years.

He still had his sea legs, and the solid land under his feet felt odd with every step he took. He marched on. Better get used to it as quickly as possible, because he was never going back to sea. He marched to the sound of the words running through his head. Never going back. Never going back.

Despite keeping away from the turnpike road, they made good progress.

Jed used to cross the Levels two or three times a year in his carrier’s cart; he knew the way well enough, though sometimes he led Solomon down paths which came to an end on the edge of a rhyne, forcing them to retrace their steps.

“I’d never have found my way alone,” Solomon remarked the second time this happened. “I already got lost once today.”

“Last time I took these back ways was…” It was a struggle to cast his mind back to what felt like decades ago.

“Spring floods the year before I was pressed. The turnpike road was underwater.” He had been obliged to leave his cart in Bridgwater and lead a team of packhorses down narrow droves and causeways barely above water level. “I was nigh on—”

He broke off. A middle-aged gentleman on a docile mare had come riding into view: certainly one of the local worthies. The sort of person who would lose no time reporting Jed if he recognised him for a deserting seaman.

Fear froze Jed in place. There was a prickly hawthorn thicket nearby that suddenly looked extremely tempting as a hiding place.

But Solomon’s hand was on the small of his back, urging him on.

“Don’t do anything suspicious,” Solomon murmured. “Just keep walking.”

The mare came plodding steadily onwards, closer and closer. The gentleman’s gaze fell on them, and he studied them with mild curiosity.

They tipped their hats. The man nodded absently and rode on.

The horse’s hooves faded away around a corner. Once they were out of earshot, Jed let out an explosive breath. He wiped a hand across his forehead. “Maybe I do make a convincing landsman, at that. Thank Christ for this new rig you got me.”

As they walked on, Jed could still feel the ghost of Solomon’s hand lingering on the small of his back.

An hour or so later, they fell in with an itinerant peddler and his son, a sturdy young lad who would make an excellent topman on a man-of-war; Jed hoped the lad would not run into the press gang.

Officially, their warrant only allowed the impressment of men who had some previous experience at sea or in coastal waters: merchant seamen, smugglers, longshoremen, and the like.

But they weren’t averse to snatching any healthy young man who crossed their path, and they often got away with it, the devils.

Jed had once heard tell of a parish constable who had himself been taken when he tried to interfere with the unlawful pressing of two baker’s apprentices.

The peddler, stooped and grizzled, was much less likely than his son to interest the gang. He seemed a cheerful sort, and he soon engaged Jed and Solomon in conversation as they walked. At first, of course, their talk was of the rumours of pressings in the district.

“My son and myself have only just come to these parts,” the peddler said. “We spent last month in and around Bristol. How about you fellows? Have you been many days on the road?”

“I came down from London on the roof of the Bristol stage,” Solomon said.

Jed shot him a curious look. If Solomon was coming from London and bound for Barnstaple, wouldn’t it have been quicker to take the stage to Exeter, or at least Taunton, instead of Bristol?

The peddler was still questioning Solomon. “And where are you bound?”

“I’ll be in Barnstaple by the end of the week, I hope.”

“Ah, Barnstaple. I’ve never been that far west. How do you find the town?”

“I don’t know it, I’m afraid. A friend is waiting for me there.”

The man chuckled heartily and elbowed Solomon in the side. “A woman, is it?”

Solomon let out a startled laugh. “No, no. Just a fellow I knew in London.”

Secretly, Jed was rather grateful to the peddler. He hadn’t liked to press Solomon with questions; they’d only just met, after all, and a man’s business was his own. But something about Solomon exerted a fascination on him—a desire to know him better.

The peddler turned to Jed, catching him off guard. “And you, friend?”

Jed opened and then closed his mouth.

“He’s come down from London with me,” Solomon said, to Jed’s gratitude.

“I was in London once. Fine place. Very fine place.” And the peddler launched into an account of his visit, with the blissful unself-consciousness of a man who has never wondered whether others like the sound of his voice.

Behind his back, his son pulled a grimace. “En’t we going to stop for the night soon, Pa?”

Dusk had begun to fall, and Jed had been pondering the same question. He had slept in his cart or under a hedgerow many a time before, but he’d rather avoid it while winter lingered in the night air.

“We’ll sleep at Mr Dawson’s,” the peddler told his son. He turned to Jed and Solomon. “We know a farmer who will let us sleep in his barn for a penny apiece. You look like honest fellows—you’re welcome to come with us. It’s just up this lane. I see the lights from here.”

He hurried forward to the next crossroads, chivvying his son along.

“He’s uncommon trusting,” Jed said in an undertone. “Why, we might slit his throat in the night and make off with all his wares.”

“You don’t know me. I might slit your throat while you sleep and make off with your money,” Solomon said dryly.

Jed grinned. “That did occur to me, I grant. But if you were designing to do me in, wouldn’t you have set upon me while I was lying helpless on the beach?”

Amusement flickered across Solomon’s face. “Very true.”