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The crew asked no questions at this unexpected treat, only chattered together with pleasure as they gathered round the barrel. I had a good slug of the stuff then went and sat on the gunwhale beside the gangway. Looked up at the boots of the guard who stood above me. Looked down at the water and saw the space between the pilings there.
My only chance. The guard above me moved out of sight. Grbonja had his back turned while the sailors had their attention focused on the barrel. A difference of opinion over the rationing appeared to breakout. There were angry shouts and a quick blow. The crew watched these proceedings with great interest. No one was visible on the dock above.
I dropped a length of line over the side, swung my legs over and climbed down it. No one saw me go. With my legs in the sea I used my dagger to cut the line above my head and dropped silently into the water. With noiseless strokes I swam into the darkness under the pier.
Slime-covered boards co
“Chin up, Jim, and move along. This is the first place they look when they find out you are missing.” I swam. Not far, for there was a solid wall here that ran back into the darkness. I groped along it until I reached the outer piles again. Through the openings between them I saw the hull of another sailing ship, tied close. There was no room to pass between the planks of the ship and the piles. Trapped so soon?!
“This is your day for panic,” I whispered aloud, the sound of my voice covered by the slapping of the waves. “You can’t go back, so carry on you must. The hull of this ship has to curve away. Just dive down and swim along it until you find another opening between the piles.” Ho-ho. Sounded very easy to do. I kicked my boots off and breathed deep. But my trepidation grew with each shuddering breath that I drew in. When my head was swimming with oxygen intoxication I let out the last lungful and dived.
It was a long, dark and apparently endless swim. I ran my left hand along the ship’s hull to guide me. Collecting some heroic splinters at the same time. On and on with no glimmer of light in front or above. This must be a very big ship. There was fire in my lungs and desperation in my swimming before I saw light ahead. I came up as quietly as I could by the ship’s bow. Trying not to gasp as I exhaled and drew in life and fresh air.
Looking up at a sailor standing on the rail above, turning toward me.
I sank out of sight again, forcing myself deep under the water, swimming on with my lungs crying out for air, until I saw the black bulk of the next ship ahead of me, forcing myself to swim on to the last glimmer of light before floating up to the surface again.
Catching my head nicely between hull and piling, to fight down the rising panic as I fought to free myself—getting some splinters in my scalp this time. My groping fingers found a gap between the pilings so I surfaced there, hung on, sucked in lungful after lungful of the stinking fug, enjoying it more th~n the freshest air I had ever breathed.
This was the begi
It was afternoon before I reached the last ship and the end of the docks. The tide was ebbing, the vessels were now down below the dock level so there was more concealment from above. I was very tired but very proficient by this time. One more time I breathed deep, dove down at the bow, swam the length of the hull and surfaced in the shadow of the rudder.
To look at a solid wall of jointed stone stretching out before me.
Holding onto the rudder, my eyes just above the surface, I peered around it. And realized that I was looking at the harbor wall that stretched unbroken out to the fort built at its far end. I drew back into the shadow of the rudder and found that my heart was sinking so fast it was pulling me under the water.
“Any bright ideas, Jim?” I asked, then found that I was waiting” a long time for an answer.
Think, don’t despair I ordered myself. I still felt despair. Could I go back? No, that was out. After all I had gone through today I was not going to surrender that easily. Hide under one of the docks? Possibly. But they would be thoroughly searched as soon as I was missed, I was certain of that. What else? Climb up onto the dock? No way. The warehouses here were sure to be as barren of hiding places as the one I had left. Then what?
“Turn the problem on its head, that’s what The Bishop had always said.”
What would that be in this situation? I was trying to get away from the soldiers, fleeing them, knowing they would be looking for me. So I should go to them. But that would be suicide. But where could I possibly go that would be totally unexpected?
Why, the fort on the end of the harbor wall of course.