The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [34]
“Get out!” she screamed.
“This is my house.”
She stood up and grabbed a broom. “Get out or I’ll brush you out myself!”
“Shut up, woman, and let me alone. I should have known that leaving for a time would give you such satisfaction.”
“I only wish you’d never come back!”
Mary walked out of the house and dragged her youngest daughter with her. She hoped that Martin would get up and look for solace in the tavern with his pals, but he didn’t. He just went to bed and fell asleep, leaving Mary with little option for the afternoon.
Seanie walked to the east coast of Ireland. In less than a month, he’d met with so many different authorities in uniforms that he was no longer afraid of what they might do to him. Once he reached the walled town of Drogheda, he made his way to the docks and started asking about passage to France.
It was nearly impossible for Seanie to find an Irish-speaking man on the dock willing to talk, but once he did, he clung to his arm and asked several questions in quick succession. The man answered back the best he could. He didn’t know what boats were sailing where, only that he would be on one of them, working. When Seanie asked him who to talk to about a voyage to France, the man pointed to an Englishman who sat at the side of the quay, sipping tea from a china cup.
“I’m sorry,” Seanie said, trying not to meet the Englishman’s eye. “My English is poor. I have passage to Paris? My family awaits me.”
“Paris, eh? What do they do?”
“They are farmers.”
The man laughed. “There are no farms in Paris, I assure you!”
“Please sir. I would do anything to have Paris.”
The man looked Seanie up and down. “Have you money boy? Airgead?”
Sean shook his head. “Work?”
“And you’ve worked on a ship before, then, have you?”
Sean shook his head again.
“I will see what I can do for you. Come back tomorrow.” He waved Seanie away with his supple white hand.
Seanie walked that day with a hop in his step, thinking of Emer. He slept that night under a dock, nestled into sand, and dreamed until daybreak of kissing each one of her freckles.
Back on the dock, he found his Englishman again and approached him.
“You still want passage to Paris?” the man asked.
Seanie nodded.
“Well you’re in luck, boy. That boat there—” he pointed to a huge, three-sailed boat “—is leaving today. Can you cook?”
Sean didn’t understand, so he shrugged.
“You Irish boys prove useless in most things. I say, how did you survive at all?”
Seanie didn’t answer.
“That one there, the Fortune. Can you read, boy? I guess not. It’s that one there,” he finished, pointing again.
“Thank you, sir. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Go on, before I change my mind.”
Seanie walked to the gangway and climbed into the enormous ship. It rocked ever so slightly, throwing him off balance at first. He started slowly across the deck, eyeing each sail and its boom, avoiding the hundred ropes strung across it. When he looked up to the crow’s nest he felt a bout of dizziness, so looked back at the deck.
“Who the hell are you?” a voice asked in Gaelic.
“Sean. Sean Carroll. I’m here to work on this voyage.”
“Who says?”
“That man there,” Seanie explained, pointing. “He said I could come aboard.”
“Aye. Well, get to work, then son. They’ll need you down in the store. We’ve got sixty more barrels to move down there, and then that whole pile of crates after that.”
Sean found his way to the steps and descended into the earthy-smelling underbelly of the ship. There, he helped secure at least a hundred barrels and stacked more crates of food and provisions than he could count. It didn’t occur to him that this was far too much food for a simple voyage to France. In fact, in his mix of fear and excitement, he didn’t think about that or any other sensible thing until they were well on their way.
It was on his second night at sea when he discovered that the Fortune wasn’t aimed for France, or even toward the continent. The Gaelic-speaking man he’d met on his first day said something strange.