Remember Me (26 page)

There was some sort of wangle with regard to the provisions going on between Captain Phillip and Smith, and it appeared that none of the officers in the colony liked the Dutchman. Will did, however. Smith had none of the stuffiness of the English captains, he was warm, open and friendly.

‘Are you mad?’ Will asked Mary.

‘No, just devious,’ Mary replied. ‘Detmer likes you and me. And I shall make sure he likes us even more before I talk him into parting with charts and a sextant.’

‘He’ll never do that,’ Will scoffed.

‘Why not?’ Mary retorted. ‘He’s being treated shabbily by all the officers, he’s lonely and far from home. He’s not English, so why should he mind helping a couple of English convicts escape?’

Will always slapped Mary’s ideas down as a matter of principle. Women weren’t supposed to be the clever ones. Yet deep down he knew her mind was sharper than his. She’d once asked him to teach her to read and write, and he said he couldn’t, not without books. She never asked him again, and somehow he knew that was because she’d seen through him. He didn’t want a wife who could read and write. It would diminish him.

But then Mary could see through most people. She watched and listened, she took in things Will would never notice. She might even be right about Detmer Smith.

Will made love to Mary that night, and took great care to please her, for he really wanted her to forget about escape. His sentence would be up in March, and though
he often told other men he would be on the first ship home, that wasn’t what he wanted at all.

He only got nostalgic for Cornwall when he was drinking. He would remember the good parts, the soft climate, the moors and the woodland, the laughter in the tavern, the camaraderie among the fishermen.

But sober, he remembered it wasn’t quite like that. Without a fishing boat of your own, you were dependent on the man who had one, hauling nets all night in freezing conditions for a shilling or so. He’d been hungry there too, and no place looked pretty to a man with an empty belly.

At least it was warm here, even in the winter. He might have got cold and wet many times when the weather was bad, but it wasn’t the kind of cold that got right into your bones so it almost paralysed you.

It was said that men would be offered free land here when their time was up. Land was of no use to him, what he wanted was his own fishing business. If he could sell his catches to the store he’d soon be a rich man. Then he could build a fine house for Mary and the children. In time, Emmanuel would come into the business with him.

‘Was that good?’ Will whispered when he’d done. He was soaked with sweat, so hot that it was almost torture to hold Mary’s equally hot body in his arms.

‘Wonderful,’ she murmured against his chest. ‘But it’s too hot. Let’s run down to the water for a dip!’

She didn’t even wait for him to agree, but wriggled out of his arms, took his hand and pulled him out of bed.
Then with a little giggle she ran out of the hut and down to the water.

Will smiled. One of the things he liked best about Mary was her spontaneity. She got an idea and she wanted to put it into action right away, not think about it first. Maybe that was what had got her into trouble in the first place, but he wouldn’t change that part of her.

She was passionate too, something he had never expected of her, for she looked so chaste and shy. She was always eager for love-making, responding quickly to just a kiss or a cuddle. Time after time she’d taken his mind right off hunger with her sensual touches, the way she wanted to please him.

The moon was bright, catching on her girlish, slender body as she dived into the sea as gracefully as a porpoise. Few other women here could swim, or men for that matter; they walked in up to their waists looking fearful, as if they expected the sea to swallow them up. Will found that daring quality about Mary as sexy as well-rounded breasts or silky skin.

She waved, beckoning him to join her, and Will ran eagerly down the beach. They swam together a little way, then Mary turned on her back and floated, her hair like strands of seaweed around her face.

‘We’ve never done it in the sea,’ she said, and giggled softly.

‘We might drown if we try this far out,’ Will retorted, but he reached out for her, treading water and holding her afloat as he sucked at her nipple.

‘First one back to the shallows gets to be on top,’ she
said, flipping herself over and making off to the shore.

For once Will didn’t try to beat her, he liked her being on top, and watching her face as she came.

‘I don’t think my John Thomas is all that eager,’ he said as he swam over to where she sat in just a foot or two of water. He thought she had never looked so pretty as she did tonight, her wet curls glistening on her bare shoulders. He knelt and showed her his penis, which had shrunk in the cold water so it looked like an old man’s.

‘I have ways of reviving him,’ she said with a grin like a whorehouse madam’s. ‘Would you like me to show you, sir?’

Will loved it when she played the whore. It made him feel powerful and lusty. He assumed when she reached out for his penis that she was just going to stroke it, but to his shock and delight, she wriggled closer in the water and took it into her mouth.

Will had heard from other men of high-priced whores doing such a thing, but he’d never bedded a woman who would do it. As Mary’s warm mouth closed over him he gasped, for it was the sweetest sensation he’d ever known. He was erect immediately, and he was terrified she would stop, but she didn’t. Instead, she held on to one of his buttocks, cradling his balls with the other hand, and moving her lips and tongue up and down the length of him. He could barely keep his balance on his knees, and when he looked down and saw himself disappearing into her eager mouth, her naked breasts undulating against his thighs, he almost toppled over.

It was the best thing he’d ever known. All at once he
was no longer in a penal colony, a man stripped of all decency and pride, but transported to a moonlit tropical island, where he was a rich gentleman. He imagined himself in a ruffled silk shirt and velvet knee-breeches with silver buckles, and Mary as an exotic beauty wearing nothing but a garland of flowers, his willing slave.

‘That’s so good,’ he moaned, catching hold of her head and bringing her even closer.

‘How good?’ she asked, breaking away from him for a moment and looking up at him with an impish grin.

‘The best in the world,’ he sighed. ‘Don’t stop now.’

‘I haven’t told you the price yet,’ she said.

‘Whatever it is I’ll pay it.’ Will’s voice was cracking with passion now.

‘Escape is the price,’ she murmured. ‘Are you willing to pay it?’

Will was willing to promise her anything. ‘Yes,’ he groaned. ‘Just do it some more.’

Mary smiled to herself as she continued. She had him now. Will might make himself out to be tougher and braver than he really was, but she’d found he always kept promises. She was very grateful to Sadie from the
Lady Juliana
for passing on her secret weapon to get men to obey her. The funny thing was, Mary had expected to find it repulsive but it wasn’t, in fact she liked doing it.

Chapter ten

As Will lowered the sack of rice into the hiding place under the hut floor, he thought he must be in love. Why else would he be going along with this madness of Mary’s, when in another month he’d be a free man?

He sat back on his haunches for a moment after he’d put the false floor back in place. Anxious as he was about the plan, he couldn’t help but smile. Whether or not he was a free man, it would be sweet revenge for all the injustices and humiliations to sail out of the harbour in the Captain’s cutter, taking not just Mary and the children, but his friends too.

The Dutch East Indies sounded a fine place to Will, a tropical paradise where a man could live like a king. Of course it was a huge distance, mostly uncharted, and daunting that no one apart from Captain Cook had ever sailed there from here. But in a strange way the danger made the voyage even more attractive to him, the kind legends were made of. Will wanted to be talked of in awed tones even after his death.

It was mid-February, and Will knew they must leave by the end of March or risk running into violent autumn
gales. But there was still so much to do, including asking Detmer Smith for assistance.

Mary was with Detmer now, delivering back his clean washing, and no doubt she was charming him for all she was worth. Will didn’t mind her doing that, it was necessary, but he didn’t like the way she was trying to take complete control of the plan.

She had insisted he shouldn’t ask his friends to join them until the last minute. She had to know what hell it was not to be able to confide in them, he wanted a man to talk to about it, not just a woman. Mary said one of them might forget himself when he’d been drinking and start talking. They all had women and Mary’s reasoning was that these women might peach if they knew they were going to be left behind. So all Will could do for now was sit it out, get the stores together, and work on Detmer and Bennelong.

Will still often saw Bennelong when he was out fishing. He was naked again, and proudly showed Will new scars he’d acquired in fights. He remembered quite a bit of the English he’d learned while in captivity, and with that, and signs, Will found he could communicate with him quite adequately.

Back last November Bennelong had returned to the settlement, wearing the clothes he’d originally been given by Captain Phillip. This appeared to be a sign that he was willing to be an interpreter, as long as no one tried to chain him up again, and so the Captain gave him a hut to live in and food from the stores.

In Will’s opinion, Captain Phillip had bitten off more
than he could chew with Bennelong. The man’s real interests were fighting and women; all he wanted from the settlement was the drink the newcomers had introduced him to. Already he’d made a nuisance of himself by getting drunk and wild at Government House, and if Phillip thought that by giving him a house he’d become his lackey, he was mistaken.

Will really liked Bennelong, for his childlike enthusiasm, his wide grin and his curiosity about white men. When he came out fishing with Will he’d taught him some of his language and customs.

It was curious that in Bennelong’s culture, if someone wanted a woman they usually hit her with a club and carried her off. Remaining faithful to just one woman seemed absurd to them, yet Bennelong revered Mary. His face lit up when he saw her, he was very anxious to please her, and Will was fairly certain that if Bennelong ever saw him with another woman, he would fight him.

Mary had been right in surmising that many of the natives knew a great deal about navigating the waters round here. They might only have the flimsiest canoes, but the skilful way they manoeuvred them and the speeds they reached were incredible. Bennelong had also shown Will ways of finding water, and which plants made good eating. Will had no doubt he would be only too happy to swim out to the cutter at night and tow her to the shore for their party to get aboard. He had no real loyalty to any of the officers, but he had to Mary and Will.

Although he knew he could count on Bennelong, Detmer was going to be more tricky.

Will and the Dutchman had a great deal in common. They were both big and blue-eyed, with fair hair; both were gregarious men who made friends easily. They were also both, for different reasons, out on a limb.

Since the settlement got back to full rations, many of the original convicts seemed to have forgotten that Will was the one who had saved their lives with his fish. As for the new arrivals, many of them were jealous of his freedom to come and go as he pleased, and often made sarcastic comments about him being the officers’ ‘boy’.

Detmer was isolated because he hadn’t played by the rules with Captain Phillip. There was short weight on the stores he’d brought in, which made the officers distrust him, and now he was driving a very hard bargain with the charter of his ship. Phillip desperately needed it to send some of his men back to England, and Detmer was being foxy. As a result, he was ostracized by the officers, and sharp little Mary, always quick to take advantage of an opportunity, took it.

At first it was a few smiles, a little conciliatory chat, an offer to do his laundry, and finally to share supper with her and Will at their hut. Will didn’t object to Detmer coming when he was there; he was good company, and he always brought a bottle of rum with him. But Will was aware that people were beginning to talk about Mary chatting to Detmer on the wharf and sometimes going out to his ship.

Only today someone had suggested she was ‘making up’ to the man. Will was jealous by nature and he didn’t like the idea of his wife alone in any man’s company. Yet
he knew Mary was far more likely to get Detmer to agree to help them than he was, so he supposed he would have to turn a blind eye as to how she accomplished it.

Will got up from the floor and went out of the hut. Mary was just coming along, with Emmanuel in her arms and Charlotte skipping beside her.

Will thought they made a pretty picture, Mary with her black curls all around her face, Emmanuel chubby and fair-haired in her arms, and Charlotte, a tiny version of her mother, kicking up the sand with her bare feet. The
Lady Juliana
had brought cloth from England. Mary had managed to talk Tench into getting her a length and she’d made a dress for herself and things for the children. Will knew that by his mother’s standards back home, Mary’s blue striped dress was crudely made, but after seeing her and so many other women just in rags for the last two years, he thought she looked very fetching.

‘You were a long time,’ he said reprovingly.

‘We got talking,’ she said, and nodded pointedly in Charlotte’s direction, her way of saying that what she had to report mustn’t be in front of the child.

Mary heated up some water on the fire and made them a cup of sweet tea, then sat down to nurse Emmanuel. As soon as Charlotte had wandered off a little way, she beckoned Will to come nearer.

‘I’ve asked Detmer to help us,’ she whispered.