Soul Seekers (3 page)

7

Cas sat on a floor of hard wooden planks that dug into his bones every time the prison wagon thumped over stones and ruts in the rough track. Jude, Emily and Siren slumped in miserable silence alongside him, all lost in their thoughts.

The wagon was large enough for twenty men, although right now only half that number was locked within its iron bars. Like a giant birdcage on wheels, the wagon was at the centre of the army and was guarded by four armed soldiers who walked alongside it.

Cas had admitted to himself already that he was in shock. He felt strangely numbed to his surroundings as though it were all part of some bizarre dream. It was
impossible
, was all that he could repeat to himself over and over again. They were in the past.
Stuck
, in the past. But everybody knew that time travel was impossible for so many reasons. It simply could not be that the four of them were now two hundred-fifty years back in history, and yet he could not deny what his own eyes and ears were telling him.

‘You’ll be right enough lad.’

Cas turned to look at an old man who sat leaning against the bars opposite him. He held a long cane in his hands, his thick grey beard spilling across his lap.

‘Sorry?’

‘Things’ll turn out right,’ the old man said again. ‘Best you rest f’now, lest you get too uppity about what’s been happening.’

Cas sighed.

‘I think we’re all
uppity
already. Where are we?’

The man laughed around his clay burner pipe.

‘Massachusetts lad,’ he replied. ‘This army is heading for Boston. They reckon the city is under siege. The Crown’s men will be gone afore long on account of the colonials gaining strength to the west.’

Cas frowned but Siren’s voice cut across the wagon.

‘This is the beginning of the American Revolutionary War,’ she said. ‘My father studied it all. The siege of Boston ended with a negotiated British retreat from the city.’

The old man’s eyes narrowed and he lifted his pipe from his mouth.

‘Now, what’s she sayin’?’

‘Her father’s made some bets on what will happen next in Boston,’ Cas replied quickly. ‘Why do the British think we’re spies, and who are you?’

The old man chewed thoughtfully on his pipe again. ‘My name’s Kip.’

Cas introduced himself and his companions.

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ Kip said, ‘and you’re suspected of being spies on account of your strange accents,’ he replied. ‘You’re not from these parts so they’re mighty suspicious of y’all. It’s a wonder they din’ shoot you on sight.’

‘They nearly did,’ Jude said. ‘We ducked.’

The old man smiled, his eyes twinkling.

‘But we’re Bostonians,’ Cas said to Kip. ‘We live here.’

‘You sure don’t sound like old-towners,’ Kip insisted. ‘The British will just accept the word of the Hessians.’

‘Who are the Hessians?’ Emily asked.

‘The soldiers who arrested you,’ Kip replied. ‘They’re mercenaries, hired by the British to bolster their number against the insurrection. They’re dangerous men, vicious and out to make plunder from this war.’

Cas turned to Jude.

‘We haven’t travelled far,’ he said. ‘We’re probably within a couple of miles of home, maybe even right next to the airbase.’

‘Thanks, Sherlock,’ Jude muttered. ‘There’s just the slight issue of the base
not being here
.’

‘Everything has an explanation,’ Cas insisted. ‘There’s a reason for this. If we can figure it out then we can solve it.’

‘Says who?’ Emily chimed in. ‘We don’t have the faintest clue why we’re here or what happened to us. For all we know we’re stuck here for the rest of our lives!’

Cas hadn’t really yet considered what that meant. He had occasionally heard his father use the phrase
‘living in denial’
. He hadn’t really understood what it meant until now, his own fear masked by his hope that somehow this was all just a huge mistake. But Emily’s words cut through him like a blade: they really could be stuck hundreds of years in the past with no way of ever getting back home again.

‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Cas said. ‘We’ve just got to get through this.’

‘Get through being hanged?’ Jude snapped.

Cas turned to Kip. ‘What happens to us when we get to Boston?’

‘What’ll happen to you is anyone’s guess. The spy they picked up out here yesterday was taken into the city to be hanged. Trial’s today and the hanging is tomorrow.’

Cas raised an eyebrow. ‘How do you know for sure the spy will be hanged?’

The old man shrugged.

‘He was creeping about in the woods too, and had a strange accent like yours.’

Cas felt a sudden anxiety surge through his body as he sat up straight. ‘How many were there of them?’

‘Just the one,’ Kip replied, ‘a young lookin’ fella.’

Emily was looking at the old man now, transfixed.

‘Did you catch his name?’ she asked.

‘I did,’ the old man replied matter-of-factly. ‘He had a strong name from the Good Book. They called him Joshua.’

* * *

8

The journey to Boston in the old prison cart took the rest of the day, nowhere near as quickly as in Cas’s father’s Porsche. When they’d learned that Boston was only a few miles distant he’d assumed that meant only a few minutes travel.

Cas’s body ached from being jolted around on the hard floor of the wagon and he was both hungry and thirsty. The guards had given them only one tankard of water the whole day and the only food they’d been spared had been hunks of dried, crusty bread that tasted stale and had big lumps in it. Cas had assumed they were chunks of wheat or flour, until Kip had corrected him.

‘They’re weevils,’ he said. ‘The only meat we’ll get today.’

Cas had managed not to throw up as the old man had bitten off a chunk of bread and chewed it mightily. Cas discarded his own chunk of bread by tossing it between the bars of the prison wagon, only to hear an uproar of cries from their fellow prisoners, who scrambled to grasp through the bars at the forlorn chunk of bread as it rolled away down the track.

A pack of mangy dogs converged on the bread and tore it to shreds.

‘You fool!’ one man shouted, his teeth stained brown and yellow and his narrow jaw covered with a thin, curly beard. ‘That was fine eatin’!’

Emily held out her chunk of bread to him. ‘Here, have mine, I’m not hungry.’

The man whirled and snatched the hunk of bread from her hand before curling up in one corner of the wagon, shielding his prize from the jealous gaze of other prisoners as he munched through it.

The army had camped on open ground a mile outside the city of Boston, a thick belt of forest standing between them and the city limits. The sun had descended beneath the horizon amid belts of cloud wreathed in flaming sunlight, and Cas was alarmed at how dark it was becoming without the comforting glow of streetlights. The woods were dense and black, the night sky above so dark it was utterly featureless.

Siren and Jude both gave their bread to Kip, who grinned thankfully as he chewed.

‘God bless you,’ he said between weevil-filled mouthfuls.

‘Why are you a prisoner, Kip?’ Cas asked, watching as hundreds of pitched tents began to glow in the light from dozens of camp fires.

‘I was caught thieving,’ Kip admitted miserably, ‘from a farmer’s grove two nights ago. Lucky not to have been shot on sight, I guess. But I’ll be hanged now f’sure.’

Cas looked Kip over. His clothes were old, ragged and stained with the dirt of decades. His beard was long and unkempt, his eyes buried either side of a long hooked nose, and his teeth were worn and stained with age.

‘How old are you Kip?’ Emily asked, perhaps thinking the same thing as Cas.

‘Me?’ Kip replied. ‘Why, I’m forty three.’

Cas’s eyes widened.
He’s only two years older than my father!
Kip looked about seventy years old. Siren whispered from where she sat behind Cas.

‘People in 1776 didn’t always live as long as we do, and they didn’t have medicines and drugs or good food either.’

‘I noticed,’ Cas replied, watching as Kip tucked into his second piece of bread.

‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Jude said from nearby. ‘You heard what he said: your father is going to be hanged tomorrow and probably us too.’

‘He’s our best chance of getting out of here,’ Siren said. ‘Your father worked on the experiment – he must know what happened, maybe have a way of putting this all right. Either way we’ve got to stop him from being hanged.’

Cas nodded but he was stumped. ‘I can’t think of any way out of this wagon.’

‘Perhaps I could ask to use the bathroom?’ Emily said.

‘That would only get one of us out,’ Siren muttered. ‘And you’d be escorted.’

‘What’s the bathroom?’ Kip asked between mouthfuls.

Cas almost blushed in the darkness. ‘You know, when you’ve got to go.’

‘Go where?’

‘To pee,’ Siren snapped.

Kip chuckled as he bit off another chunk of bread. ‘You wouldn’t be escorted,’ Kip said, crumbs spilling from his lips. ‘You’d just go there.’

Kip pointed to a darkened corner of the prison wagon. In the flickering light of the camp fires Cas saw a ragged hole hacked into the floor.

‘Oh,’ was all he could think of to say.

Emily grasped his shoulder tightly and pointed at the hole. ‘Jude’s right, we have to get out of here because I’m not using
that
!’

Cas sighed. ‘I’m working on it.’

The camp quietened down as the evening turned to night and Cas was surprised to see how quickly the soldiers and prisoners all fell asleep. He had read once about how people used to sleep for two periods at night, in the time before streetlights. Instead of one long sleep, they would sleep for two four-hour periods, with a break in between when they would go about their business as though it were daytime: reading, visiting friends or carrying out chores.

Cas looked at the interior of the prison wagon. The floor and roof were solid panels of wood two-inches thick, far too strong to scrape or push through. The bars were thin and not too closely spaced, but the gaps were too small for anybody to squeeze through. The gate on one side of the wagon was made of iron and welded onto heavy hinges. The lock securing it was bigger than Cas’s fist. Unbreakable.

Cas thought of his father, trapped inside the city and facing certain death. Joshua was a great dad and the thought of him dying here alone sent a shiver of grief shuddering through his body. Cas fought back tears that welled in his eyes as he forced himself to think. He remembered what his father had told him long ago when Cas was afraid of the bigger boys in his new school in England:

‘You can’t fight your way out of everything, but you can think your way out of anything.’

Cas looked at the bars and then across at Kip’s cane, and an idea formed in his mind.

Cas waited until the other prisoners in the wagon were asleep, old Kip snoring loudly. The guards were not far away but slumped against nearby trees, dozing quietly. Cas could just make out soldiers standing guard around the edges of the camp: picket duty, he’d heard them call it.

Cas touched Jude and Emily on the arm and together they huddled alongside Siren.

‘It’s time to leave,’ Cas whispered.

‘We’re in a prison wagon with iron bars,’ Jude uttered, ‘just sayin’.’

Cas looked at Siren. ‘Take your belt off.’

‘Are you kidding?’ she hissed.

‘Do it,’ Cas insisted. ‘Jude, get me Kip’s cane.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Jude challenged. ‘Poke your way out?’

Cas ignored Jude as Siren undid her thick leather belt and handed it across to him. Jude returned moments later, having slid Kip’s cane from his grasp. He handed it across to Cas, who shuffled across to the iron bars on the side of the wagon that was opposite to where the guards were dozing against the trees.

Cas threaded Siren’s belt through two of the bars and back into the wagon, then fastened it. As Siren, Jude and Emily looked on he slid Kip’s cane up through the belt hoop and then began twirling it around and around.

The cane twisted the belt, which became taut under the pressure, squeezing against the iron bars. Cas increased the pressure on the cane, squeezing the belt tighter.

Siren moved alongside him and grasped the cane, forcing it farther around with her greater strength. The thin iron bars began to bend toward each other under the pressure.

‘That’s brilliant!’ Emily whispered excitedly.

Cas and Siren twisted the belt until the iron bars were almost touching, and then Cas slipped the cane out and undid the belt. Siren understood immediately and moved the belt across to the next pair of bars. Cas fastened the belt and together they turned the cane through the belt until it pulled the bars toward each other.

Cas sat back and looked at the gap, wide enough for them to slip through.

Siren threaded her belt through her jeans and looked at Cas. ‘Not bad for a wimp.’

Cas grinned and carefully slid between the bars.

‘Hurry,’ Jude whispered. ‘Somebody’s coming.’

Cas clambered down off the wagon and dashed away from the glow of the camp fires. He reached the safety of the darkness and turned to see Emily and Jude drop from inside the wagon and hurry across to join him. Last out was Siren.

Cas looked to his left and saw two patrolling soldiers walking side by side from out of the woods, their muskets cradled in their arms as they surveyed the camp.

‘We’d better get moving,’ Emily said. ‘If they see the bars are bent they’ll raise the alarm.’

‘Which way?’ Jude asked. ‘How do we know where to go?’

Cas looked up into the inky blackness of the night sky, and against the low clouds to his left he saw a faint orange glow, like he’d seen above Boston back home but much weaker.

‘That way,’ he said. ‘It’s the lights in the city glowing off the clouds above.’

He got to his feet and had taken a single pace when the screech of a whistle shattered the silence of the night and a chorus of shouts bellowed out.

‘The prisoners have escaped!’

* * *