The CRES code

Chapter Twenty One - The Stowaways

     It took about an hour for the rowing boats to pull the ship out through the harbour entrance. The three hibernators spent the whole time in a state of near panic, expecting the priests to somehow send a message to the ship's Captain demanding that he return to port, but several ships had been leaving at the same time and most of them had had passengers and members of crew going aboard at the last minute. Randall knew, intellectually, that the priests had no way of knowing which ship they were aboard, or that they were aboard any of them, but it didn't help and he was only able to relax when the ship began swaying like a baby's crib whose mother was trying to lull it off to sleep. It told them that they had passed through the harbour entrance and that the ship was feeling the waves of the open sea. Suddenly their fatigue hit them, and one by one they drifted off to sleep.

     When Randall woke up sunlight was shining in under the bottom of the lifeboat. Loach was gently snoring and Randall shook him until he awoke, worried that the sound would be heard above the crashing of the waves on the prow and the wind in the sails.

     "God, I'm hungry!" whispered Loach. "I'm bloody starving!"

     "We're all hungry," replied Randall, equally quietly. He strained his ears, listening for the footsteps of crewmen coming near to them. "We're not griping about it."

     "You didn't burn off most of your blood glucose jamming a church yesterday. My adrenal glands must be working overtime replacing it."

     "You've got plenty of fat reserves," said Randall. "I've seen them, remember?" He heard a snicker of amusement coming from Jane. "Now shut up before they hear you."

     "I'm going to go see if I can find some food, before it gets fully light," said Loach.

     "No, you idiot!" said Randall, grabbing his arm to stop him. "They'll see you!"

     "Are you suggesting we hide here until this ship gets where it's going? It might be months at sea! It might be going to China for all we know!"

     "When it's fully light we'll go together to present ourselves to the Captain, ask him to put us ashore somewhere. Either that or that he gives us passage to wherever he's going."

     "And how are we going to pay for our passage? We have a grand total of eleven small copper coins. I suspect that passage aboard ships cost rather more than that."

     "Maybe we can work our passage."

     Loach laughed again. "With all your knowledge of how to sail medieval tall ships?"

     "They used to press gang people into navies back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, people who had absolutely no knowledge of how to sail a ship, so it can't be hard to learn. We're both intelligent people, we'll soon pick it up. We'll be safe at sea until the priests have given up looking for us, and then we can get back to reclaiming the world for humanity."

     "And what about Jane? What's likely to happen to her, the only woman aboard a ship full of horny, lonely sailors?"

     Randall felt Jane tense up beside him. She was listening to the conversation with understandable interest. Randall didn't particularly care what happened to her so long as she was still useful to him, but if she realised that, she might run out on him and he might need her head phone one day. He had to say something to calm and reassure her, therefore. "We'll tell them she's married to one of us," he said. "They won't touch the wife of another crewman."

     "How sure are you of that?" asked Loach.

     Randall never had the chance to reply, though, because several members of the crew were approaching. The crewman they'd passed when they'd come aboard had been asking everyone he met who their passengers were until word had finally found its way to the Captain. He sent the crew to search the ship, and the lifeboat was one of the first places they looked.