The Low Road (13 page)

I established by a few cautious movements of my limbs that I was neither injured nor bound. Once the light had increased to
such an extent that I was in no immediate danger of braining myself or falling down a hole, I crept out of the cot and made my way towards a dark shape which seemed to be the source of the breathing. I was right; lying against a thick wooden pillar, his head thrown back and his mouth open, was a sleeping man. In his right hand he held a small bladed instrument; beside him was a large pile of brown root vegetables, smaller than a turnip, of a sort that I had never seen before. Evidently he had been in the process of peeling them when he had fallen asleep. A dispiritingly small mound of peel lay on his left.

The vessel was silent, and I had leisure to observe my companion. He was a young man, a few years my senior, dark haired, bearing the marks on his face of a recent fight. His right eye was blackened; his nose, evidently broken long before, was recently bloodied. It struck me, as the light increased, that he looked a little like Lebecque-a coarser, uglier version, but the same basic type. His dirty white shirt, which was torn to the waist and stained with blood, revealed a strong, hairy torso not unlike my tutor's. His face bore a resemblance too - Lebecque without the intelligence.

But my interest in him was nothing compared to the real object of my desires-a bucket of water that lay just beyond. To reach it I had to crawl right up to him and reach over his arm. My hand slipped on some of the wet peelings and I fell heavily into his lap. The man woke with a yell and a curse. I righted myself, and for a few moments we stared at each other, our faces a few inches apart in the gloom. Then, remembering that he carried a blade, I righted myself and stepped out of his reach.

‘You're the boy.' His voice was thick, slightly slurred. I was not sure if this was the result of his recent battles, or his normal means of expression.

‘Where am I?'

He laughed, then gripped his jaw in pain. ‘You're in the hold.'

‘What vessel?'

‘The Florida.'

‘Where bound?'

‘Liverpool. We're moored at Oban.'

‘How did I get here?'

He laughed again, and regretted it just as quickly. ‘Don't ask me, boy. You were lying there when they threw me down last night. I'm on punishment detail. Peeling spuds.'

‘Spuds?'

‘Potatoes!' He laughed and set about one of the roots with his knife. ‘Haven't you ever seen one before?

‘Who's the captain?'

‘Moore.'

‘English?'

‘Yes. Not a bad bastard.'

‘What happened to you?'

‘Drunk and disorderly. Insulting an officer. Usual thing. Fighting over a... well, let's not go into that. I've taken my punishment.' He rubbed his nose and sneezed.

‘What do they want with me?'

‘Aren't you full of questions? How should I know. What are you? Jacobite? Moore picks up prisoners from the redcoats, ships them down to Liverpool for “questioning”, at least that's what they call it.'

‘But I've done nothing...' Then I remembered my foolish bragging to the mercenaries at the inn. Oh yes, I had been brave enough then. Telling them how I was the son of a great Jacobite hero, on my way to Fort William to rescue a French spy from the English devils - God send confusion to them all! Well, a long way my fine talk had got me. Fucked at both ends, sold to the redcoats (I hope they got a good price for me) and on my way to an uncertain fate in England.

‘Are you hurt?' My companion, at least, had a glimmer of compassion.

‘No,' I said, ‘just my head.' A big clot of blood had dried in my hair. Otherwise I felt well enough.

‘Let's have a look at you.' He got up; he was shorter than Lebecque, closer to my height, much thicker set. ‘Come on over to the light.' He led me closer to one of the portholes, where a faint ray of sunshine permeated the stygian bowels of the ship. Carefully, gently, he looked me over.

‘Pretty little mug,' he said, holding me under the chin. ‘Where are you from?'

‘Loch Linnhe.'

‘Highlander. I thought so. You've the Highland colouring, sandy red hair, white skin. What age are you?'

‘Nineteen.'

He thought for a moment. ‘Are you brave?'

‘In a fight? Yes, I think so.'

‘In other ways?'

I did not understand what he was getting at. ‘What do you mean?

He changed his tack. ‘Been at sea before?'

‘No.'

‘You'll not know, then, the ways of seafaring men.' A faint light was dawning in my mind.

‘I suppose you mean men who go without a woman for many months.'

He grinned awkwardly. ‘Different customs at sea. I don't say one's good, one's bad. It's just the way things are. It'll take us a few days to reach Liverpool. Be careful, that's all I'm saying.'

‘Thanks for the warning, but I can look after myself.' Nothing, of course, could have been further from the truth. Thinking back to the usage I'd received at the hands of my friends in the inn, I absent-mindedly rubbed my still-sore backside. A dull twinge of pain shot up inside me and brought back a tangible memory of the huge battery of cocks that had stretched my arsehole to its limits.

The sailor sat down and carried on with his peeling. Above us, on the deck, the crew were beginning to stir. The ship rocked as we prepared to sail. I sat down, dipped a tin cup into the bucket and drank, wondering all the more about the maritime customs to which he had referred. I idly watched him at work, the starch from the potatoes drying in splashes on his powerful arms and legs.

‘Shall I help you?'

‘No, lad. Thank you for the offer. There's only one peeler.'

‘Let me do a few for you.'

‘It's all right. Rest yourself.'

‘Let me clear away the peels, then.' I started to scoop up handfuls of the cold, wet, slimy things that surrounded him, piling them neatly beside me. In my eagerness to be of assistance, I inevitably slipped again and landed face down in the potatoes, which rolled all over the floor. I spent the next ten minutes chasing them around the dark corners of the hold until I had retrieved them all. Occasionally I heard the sailor laughing. What a fool he must have thought me.

Thinking that my assistance had done more harm than good, I decided that a companionable silence might be of more use and so I sat beside him and drank another cup of water.

‘There's still a spud rolling around on the floor somewhere.'

‘Where?'

‘Can't you see it?' He hitched up the tails of his filthy white shirt and there, between his legs, was a large, peeled potato which I must have missed during my attempts to tidy the hold.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Well come on, boy, pick it up and put it on the pile.'

I reached down to grasp it, but my hand slipped on the wet surface. It seemed somehow to be attached to the floor. I gripped it again, more firmly this time, and lifted it an inch or two off the ground, but further than that it would not go. Finally I heaved harder, the potato came free in my hand and I sat down hard. The
sailor was looking at me and grinning, holding up his shirt tails and pointing a big, hard, wet cock at me. I examined the potato in my hand. While my back had been turned he had bored a hole in it just big enough to slide his prick into. When he saw the look of astonishment on my face, he burst out laughing.

‘Bet you've never seen a spud like that before, boy!' His cock shook and bounced as he laughed. The white starch from the potato coated it, running down his balls and gathering in the wiry hairs on his scrotum.

Crawling forward on my hands and knees, with the hollow potato held in front of me, I positioned the hole over the head of his cock again and pushed it down with a rude squelching sound. The sailor sighed and stretched out his legs. I pulled the potato back until I could see the edge of his knob popping out of it, then pushed it down again. Up and down, up and down it went, until his cock had swollen so much that that potato barely fitted around it.

Finally I threw the vegetable to one side and replaced it with my mouth. I lay on my belly in front of him, burying my face in his groin, sliding my lips up and down his cock, feeling each thick vein with my tongue, tasting the strange starchy taste of the potato mingling with the more familiar savours of sweat and piss. Resting his weight on the palms of his hands, the sailor hoisted his hips in the air in order to allow me easier access. I increased the speed of my sucking and fondled his balls, which were big and heavy. Moving down, I took them one at a time in my mouth, rolling them around, running my tongue all around them while the sailor moaned and bucked his hips.

At length he kneeled upright, I got on all fours and allowed him to fuck my mouth while he held on to my ears. Reaching over, he ran a hand over my arse, finding the sore spot where it had been so recently abused. Again, I felt a twinge - of pleasure this time rather than pain. I wriggled my arse responsively.

Pulling himself out of my mouth, he pushed me down until
my face was pressed against the floor of the hold, and then undid my trousers. I expected, then, to feel the heat of fingers or cock pressing against my arsehole, and was bracing myself for the pleasure to come; all through the sucking, I had been thinking how much I wanted this thick, hard piece of meat inside my bowels. But instead something cold and wet slapped against my arse: he had scooped up a huge handful of potato peelings and shoved them between my buttocks, rubbing them around until I was covered in starch. A few peelings clung to me as he picked up more, mashing them against the firm white flesh of my backside, rubbing them over my balls and then grasping my prick in a cold, slippery grasp that only made it hotter. Only then, when I was thoroughly plastered with the thick white fluid, did I feel at last the sudden hard prodding of his cock head against my slimy hole. I breathed deeply, opened up and felt him slide into me. A few short, hard thrusts and he was spewing his own load deep inside me.

With his prick still buried in my arse, the sailor flipped me over on to my back, spat on my cock and took me in his hand. I was desperate to come, and squirmed around on his still-hard pole, forcing it into the most sensitive corners of my arse while he wanked me gently at first, picking up pace until he was lifting me off the ground with each stroke. When I came, it splattered up his stomach and chest. He ran his fingers through it and brought them to his mouth, then leaned forward and kissed me. His cock slid out of my arse with a wet plop just as we heard footsteps approaching the trap door above our heads.

Quickly, silently, the sailor crushed his mouth against mine in a bruising kiss, pulled me down to lick the last few drops of come from his dirty, sweaty chest, then motioned me back to the cot. I scuttled across the floor; he hefted his cock back into his trousers and started work on another potato. The trap door above our heads creaked open and slammed down on to the deck; the sudden influx
of light caused me to wince. Boots appeared at the top of the ladder, then a pair of legs encased in thick blue cotton, a big, rounded bum, a heavy leather belt, and a bare back.

‘Time to wake up, sleeping beauties!' The new arrival jumped the last three feet to the ground, landing deftly on the slippery floor. When he turned to face us I saw a powerful, deeply-tanned torso, perfectly smooth in contrast to the hairiness of the other. Slabs of muscle slid and twitched under the toffee-coloured skin. White teeth gleamed out of a mocking smile. Black eyebrows and eyelashes framed pale blue eyes, forced into brilliance by a mop of hair the colour of dirty straw. Evidently this was a man of some authority on the ship; possibly the captain.

He strode over to where my sailor was hunched on the ground, and made as if to kick him in the face. The sailor flinched in fear, then, when he realised he had been tricked, scowled sulkily and returned to his work.

‘Fuck you, Dessert.'

‘That's Mister Midshipman Dessert to you, shithead.' He had a French drawl to his voice. Clearly this was not a regular naval vessel. What band of pirates had I fallen among? My sailor grumbled and turned away.

‘Where's the new pussy? Have you fucked him yet, shithead?' There was no reply. I thought it best to feign ignorance, and pretended to wake out of a deep sleep. Dessert strode over to the cot and stood with his feet a yard apart and his hands on his hips, every inch a pirate out of a tale told to frighten children.

‘Time to get up, pussy.' He prodded me none too delicately with the toe of his boot. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Dessert's groin was hovering a few feet from my face. I had a distinct premonition that it would be closer still before we reached Liverpool.

‘You're wanted up on deck. We don't carry passengers, you know. There's work to be done. Oh yes! Do we have work for you!' He laughed - not kindly. I cast around me for the clothes I had
been wearing when I left Gordon Hall. Of course they were nowhere to be found.

‘Where is my coat?'

Dessert laughed again. ‘Your coat? You're wearing all the clothes that you arrived in. You want to be more careful about the company that you keep, Mister Gordon.' He knew my name, then. ‘There are some dangerous characters at large in the Highlands. A nice little piece of arse like you isn't safe to roam around at night. Who knows what they might take from you?' With that he threw a bundle into my lap and jumped back on to the ladder. ‘Change into your uniform and report to me up on deck in five minutes.' He was gone.

I untied the bundle and extracted two garments, neither of which I could identify at first. One was clearly intended for the upper body, one for the lower, but they were of a design hitherto unknown to me. The shirt, if I could call it that, was little more than a sleeveless singlet which, when I pulled it on, stopped short around my midriff. The trousers were unfathomable: there seemed to be a part missing. They were loose around the hips, and depending on which way I wore them they left either my cock or my arse exposed to the elements. I assumed they were some kind of over-garment, to be worn with the proper underwear, but there was nothing else in the bundle. I turned to the sailor for help, but he just shrugged and carried on with his work. I would have complained, but there was something about Dessert's tone of voice that quelled my disobedience. Adjusting the trousers so that the gap was at the rear (my theory being that I could more easily hide myself by keeping my back to the wall) I climbed the ladder. I caught my sailor friend casting one last fond look at my arse as I ascended, and then emerged, blinking, into the daylight.