Tregarthur's Prisoners: Book 3 (The Tregarthur's Series) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Tregarthur’s Series

  The Carter Gang

  Justice

  Death Row

  Turn of the Key

  All Aboard

  Off the Coast of Africa

  ‘Sail!’

  Becalmed

  A Step too Far

  Paradise

  Heading South

  Unwelcome News

  As Far as You Can Go

  Crated

  Another Specimen

  The Smallest Cry

  The Plan

  Yambup

  Corroboree

  Grey Shores

  Mr Connoy

  An Unexpected Friend

  Gin

  Carted Off

  Tregarthur’s Crystal

  About the Author

  We'd Love to hear from you!

  Tregarthur’s Series

  Book 3

  First published in Great Britain in 2015

  by Cillian Press Limited. 83 Ducie Street, Manchester M1 2JQ

  www.cillianpress.co.uk

  Copyright © Alex Mellanby 2015

  The right of Alex Mellanby to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Cover Photography: 'Tall sailing ship from Russia' by Adrian van Leen

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-909776-14-2

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-909776-15-9

  This book is dedicated, as before, to Pat Read and all the walkers who have and will take up the challenge of the Ten Tors. May they never meet Alice Tregarthur.

  It is also in memory of so many lives devastated by transportation.

  Cillian Press have again been fantastic and put up with my rantings and ravings which might reflect the characters but was more due to my inadequate technology skills. Carolyn’s wonderful support and encouragement helped me to turn my endless ramblings into a story.

  Finally regrets to the many giant tortoises eaten by sailors in the Indian Ocean.

  The Carter Gang

  -1-

  The wild swinging of the horse-drawn prison cart made thinking difficult, not that thinking would have done any good. I’d been grabbed within seconds of coming out of the tunnel. How had they been waiting for us? Us? I wasn’t sure who I was with. And I had absolutely no idea when it was.

  I just knew we hadn’t escaped from Miss Tregarthur, the teacher whose terrible anger was all aimed at me. This place, this time, she must have sent us here, would we ever find out why or even how and would it never end? Perhaps it would, but only with my death.

  We’d been dragged off the moor and pushed down a muddy track. I’d tried to look around and someone hit me with a lump of wood – it looked like a truncheon and it hurt. Looking around got me a sack over my head. As I stumbled on I was soaked through by damp drizzle, we’d been used to that sort of weather ever since the first day of Miss Tregarthur’s hike.

  When we stopped, I heard the noise of other men and horses. I felt an animal’s hot steamy breath and I was nuzzled out of the way. We were thrown into the back of the cart. I could just make out shapes through the sacking and I wasn’t sure how many of us had been taken prisoner. The cart had high side rails, I tried to sit, it wasn’t easy with my hands tied.

  ‘Moreton lock-up,’ one of the men shouted and we were off. Massive ruts in the road made the cart almost turn over as we headed away from the moor.

  ‘Ow,’ squealed a voice I recognised – Jenna. She must have smacked against the cart side and I felt her slide down over my leg.

  ‘No talking,’ shouted one of the men who had taken us prisoner. From the sound of it they were following the cart on horseback.

  ‘Who’s here?’ Jenna asked me in a whisper.

  ‘Me and Sam,’ came another whisper – Ivy’s whisper. ‘It’s just the four of us. You alright Sam?’

  A groan came from the other side.

  ‘I saw Sam fall.’ Jenna’s voice was heard by the men, there was a loud crack and she shrieked. It sounded like a whip. We stayed quiet after that. I wedged myself against the woodwork. There was no way to stop getting bruised and bashed as we picked up speed.

  Finally we stopped. The men started shouting, more people arriving. We were dragged off the cart and the sacks pulled from our heads, finding ourselves standing on a mud street surrounded by old thatched houses. A crowd was gathering, surrounding us, in the fading light the crowd, maybe twenty or thirty of them, holding lanterns.

  ‘The Carter gang,’ shouted one of the men as he climbed down from his horse. ‘Get the magistrate.’

  The crowd cheered. I felt a sharp sting on my face. Someone had thrown a stone.

  ‘Stop that,’ shouted the man. ‘We need to keep them alive for the drop.’

  That raised a laugh. Ivy gave a moan and even though she did a lot of moaning I thought this had to be bad. The drop - wasn’t that hanging? We’d escaped from the last lot who were going to burn us to death, escaped through the tunnel and now we were going to be hanged.

  ‘At least you’re famous, the famous Alvin Carter,’ Jenna said without laughing.

  A short man with a large belly pushed his way through, stood in front of us, nodded and said, ‘In the lockup for tonight. Judge says he wants them down South for the assize court.’ He turned to the first man. ‘Jake, you’ll have to take them, don’t let them escape.’

  ‘You paying?’ asked the man called Jake.

  ‘Usual rates.’

  ‘Oi, you,’ shouted Jenna and she pointed with her tied hands at the man who must have been the magistrate.

  The crowd hushed after a few sniggers, I don’t think they were used to people shouting at their magistrate, especially young girls. I was used to Jenna shouting at people, everything that had happened to us had made her braver. Brave, but was it the right thing to do now?

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Jenna went on. ‘You’ve no right.’

  Jake shoved her and she fell to the ground. I could see he was going to kick her, so I threw myself forward and we all tumbled into the mud, including the magistrate. Three men jumped on me, one smashed his fist into my stomach. I couldn’t breathe, gasping as they pulled me up and hit me again. Jenna screamed, Ivy cried out and Sam just looked confused.

  ‘Lockup. Now.’ The magistrate brushed himself off and tried to stride away, more of a waddle.

  Sam and I were thrown into a damp cellar. It looked like it was used to store wood and other junk. Cold, wet, muddy and dark when they slammed and locked the door. And the sort of smell you don’t want to ask about.

  I hurt from the beating. I needed Jenna. She was the one who kept me from giving up. There was no end to this. At least they had untied our hands.

  ‘Don’t see why they bothered to take off the sacks, can’t see anything,’ Sam groaned.

  There was only a slit
of dim light coming from under the door.

  ‘What was that?’ Sam startled and shifted nearer to me.

  ‘Rats,’ I said without thinking, Sam gave a shriek and shuffled even closer.

  I’d forgotten he hadn’t been with us in the plague village, so he wasn’t used to rats.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Sam asked. ‘We didn’t see you again after me and Ivy got into the tunnel, what happened?’

  That almost made me smile, Sam getting me to talk, maybe to take my mind away from things too horrible to think about. Sam was such a different person from the one that had set out on Miss Tregarthur’s hike.

  So I told him what had happened and as I talked it did feel better. I told him how the tunnel had taken us back to the time of the Black Death and how we’d saved the king. How Zach the ex-school bully had somehow been set up as the person in charge and sentenced us to death. Zach and the ex-school queen bitch Demelza.

  ‘We escaped, but Miss Tregarthur had us cornered by a crowd of crazy villagers and she’s done it again,’ I said. ‘If you and Ivy hadn’t turned up they were going to burn us to death. Don’t know how you did that. How did you get there?’

  ‘I don’t know, don’t understand.’ Sam moved again as we heard more scuffling noises in the dark.

  ‘Where did you come from? What were you doing all the time we were away?’ I found a small stone on the floor next to me and chucked it at the noise, I don’t think I hit anything.

  Sam had no real answer. ‘What time? We just swirled about and there we were.’

  ‘Wasn’t Ivy hurt in the cave …’ I choked on my words, suddenly remembering Mum. Her lying bleeding on the cave floor, had she died? ‘Wasn’t Ivy hurt in the caveman battle?’ I finished.

  Sam wasn’t sure about anything. ‘Ivy hurt? Maybe, yeah I think so, hurt her arm.’ More of it came back to him. ‘Jenna said to get into the tunnel ahead of you, so we did.’

  ‘What happened next?’ I asked.

  ‘Like I said we just came out and there you were with that crazy Tregarthur woman,’ Sam sounded as though he was talking through a fog, finding it hard to remember. ‘She was going on about revenge and trying to stop you getting away.’

  ‘You kept the tunnel open for us.’ I gave a shiver, we’d been so close to death.

  ‘Don’t know it’s done any good?’ Sam moaned, he hadn’t watched the villagers building the bonfire for us, at least we were still alive.

  I tried to get Sam to remember more, it made no sense to him. They had gone into the tunnel and come straight out to save us. I suppose that if you are messing around in time travel years for us could have been seconds for Sam and Ivy. But it can’t have been Miss Tregarthur’s plan that Sam and Ivy should arrive and save us. She wanted us dead, still did. Something else was going on and I had no idea what that could be.

  I just hoped it had made Zach disappear for good. I didn’t really believe that. He had to have something to do with us being in this prison. Talking and thinking really hadn’t made anything better.

  We heard a bang which sounded like another door being slammed, followed by footsteps outside our cell. Our door was flung open and someone dumped a jug and some bread on the floor.

  ‘Hey,’ I shouted as I tried to get up and stop him, but another man stepped in and pushed me down.

  ‘May need to keep you alive, that’s all,’ he laughed at me and they left.

  ‘What have you done with them?’ I yelled at the closed door. I had to find out what had happened to Jenna and Ivy.

  A small hatch high up in the door opened. ‘Keep the noise down or we may give up on keeping you alive.’

  The men walked away. The open hatch gave enough light to see the food. Outside the door was just a stone corridor, no noise of other prisoners, no sign of Jenna and Ivy.

  ‘Maybe they’ve let them go,’ suggested Sam.

  I was sure he was wrong and I didn’t say anything. I worried how they treated women prisoners.

  We ate the stale bread and drank something from the jug, it tasted foul. Sam and I talked a bit more and despite the threats, we tried shouting through the hatch and nothing happened, no one came and the damp cold ate its way into us as the light faded to nothing.

  In the dark more awful thoughts came back to me. The mystery of my mum. What had really happened? Jenna had worried that she might have survived, all I remembered was that terrible wound from the battle, surely no one could live after that, could they? What if … had I left her there in more danger?

  Closing my eyes brought the wild face of Miss Tregarthur into my head, I could hear her screams, feel her hate. We were firmly in her grip with no escape.

  Maybe I slept or at least dozed. In the morning they came with the blacksmith and we were put in manacles before being dragged off to the cart again, all four of us. Our hands were tied but they didn’t put the sacks back so I could see Jenna. She had bruises on her cheek and the deep scowl on her face told me she was very angry. Ivy looked miserable – but normally miserable for Ivy.

  Jenna tried to say something.

  ‘I told you. No talking,’ shouted Jake and cracked his whip on the wooden sides, just missing her.

  We banged along down the rough track. Hours of painful bumps. We stopped in another small village and a few people gathered round to jeer at us. The Carter gang were already known of here.

  ‘What are we supposed to have done?’ Sam risked a question to Jake who was sitting on his horse taking a long drink of ale that someone had passed up to him.

  Jake just laughed in a nasty way, ‘Suppose you’ll pretend you’re innocent.’ He finished his drink and let loose a spit of phlegm which hit Sam on the head and we were off again.

  ‘Sheep stealing,’ whispered Jenna, looking round anxiously. ‘And worse.’

  As well as Jake, two other men followed on horses and a huge man up front handled the cart. If Jenna was anxious that meant the night in the lockup had been bad for them. Ivy said absolutely nothing and I saw tears trickle down her cheeks.

  As day faded we reached another village and another cell. In the night I heard a scream and thought it sounded like one of the girls. I was on my feet shouting and kicking the door, but it was hopeless.

  During the next day the road became better, more carts passed and more people on horseback. Often there were women selling food and drink, standing outside rough looking houses and shouting about the things they had to sell. Sometimes we stopped while the men bought ale or just chatted to the women. Jake soon had us moving on again and after more painful miles I could see we were nearing a town with a cloud of smoke rising in the distance and the smell getting even worse. Wherever and whenever we were they hadn’t worked out how to deal with sewage yet.

  ‘Must be a couple of hundred years before our time,’ Ivy muttered. There was enough noise all around us as we entered narrow streets, so we could manage a few snatched words, but none of them helpful, and mostly about Miss Tregarthur.

  We needed Jack and Mary, the other two who’d survived the Black Death but had disappeared after the last trip in the time tunnel. They would have known more about this place and this time. I wished they’d come with us, but that was unfair. I tried to be happy that at least they weren’t going to be hanged.

  ‘How do you reckon a couple of hundred years?’ asked Jen.

  ‘Dunno really,’ Ivy went on. ‘Oil street lights, horses, foul stink.’

  ‘Does that mean there is more of that Black Death?’ I wasn’t sure if that mattered now. Although hanging did sound a little better than being burnt alive.

  ‘Not like what you’d really call civilised is it?’ Jenna squirmed across the cart to avoid something foul being thrown out of one of the passing windows.

  The streets narrowed even more with buildings crowding in on us. Wooden
framed houses hanging over the street, almost touching, shouts and noise from traders, barking dogs and always that stench. It was a slow journey, stopping to let other carts squeeze past, once a posh carriage bundled through. I could see people sitting inside with handkerchiefs held tight to their faces to cover the smell.

  Finally we came into a square and stopped. Space to look around before more hands grabbed us and pulled us from the cart. Jake shouted something about getting a warrant and he was off. We were hustled into a large stone building. The rank smell even worse, more shouting from onlookers, weeping women, children running around and playing in the dirt, dogs and fear. This was the town jail.

  Sam and I were flung into a crowded, barred cell. A barred cell in a row of other barred cells. Stone walls separating groups of prisoners.

  In our cell there were maybe ten other miserable, ragged men on the ground with their backs to the walls. One bigger man sat alone, the rest keeping away from him. I shouted after Jen. I couldn’t see what was happening to her. She was dragged out of sight.

  Sam and I turned from the cell door to face the other men. The big man raised himself and closed in on us. This was trouble, but given all the other things that were likely to happen to us I wasn’t as scared as I should have been. Anyway this lot looked like the people I knew back home. Although I hadn’t seen where my dad was put in jail I did know what he did at home, how he carried on his illegal business. And he knew how to deal with people who messed with him, even the big ones. Could I do it?

  I had to stop shaking so I spat on the floor before turning back to the man and I poked him in the stomach.

  There was a gasp and silence around the cell. The big man looked surprised and his face creased in an angry red grimace, I had to see this through so I pushed him hard and said, ‘Don’t you know who we are?’