By early afternoon, I was going stir-crazy being stuck on the boat. The constant bobbing in the water had my insides doing backflips. We had barley gruel and salted dry herring for lunch, but I didn’t eat much. I was on the top deck staring off towards the curl of Cape Cod in the distance, wondering if the search party had found anything yet, when fourteen-year-old Francis Billington walked up next to me.
“Hi, Francis.” Francis was always up to no good. He father, John Billington, was a foul-mouthed and rude man who was not part of the Separatists. The Billington family gained passage on the Mayflower after some of the other Separatists decided not to make the journey from England. These were the people that Mr. Bradford and Mr. Brewster referred to as Strangers. Most of the Strangers got along okay with the Separatists, but the Billingtons were a different breed.
“I bet you never fired a musket before, ‘ave ya?” he asked me. His face was dirty with a mix of boat grime and cold gruel that had dribbled down his chin.
“No. I haven’t.”
“Well, I ‘ave. And if ya ask nicely, I might show ya how to operate one.”
“Where will you get a musket from?”
“My father ‘as one. He lets me shoot it sometimes when I want. Would you like to see?”
“No, I don’t believe you.”
“I’m tellin’ the truth,” he said (but he pronounced it “troof” in his thick, English accent). “It’s in our cabin!”
Francis bragged in front of the other children a lot. I had become pretty good at ignoring his empty boasting, but this time I decided to call his bluff. “Okay, Francis, let’s see it.”
I followed him down the deck hatch into the ‘tweens. We walked down the make-shift hallway between the thin-walled cabins until we reached the small room his family stayed in. Lying on one of the cots was a wooden musket. Francis picked it up with a confident grin on his face. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually quite impressed.
“See? Want me show ya how it works?”
“Are you sure you won’t get in trouble?” It was a plain looking brown musket with what looked like a long, thin rope tied to the bottom of it that wound up and connected to where the hammer should have been.
“Of course! My father trusts me all day. This ‘ere is the flash pan.” Francis pointed at small metal crevice near the trigger. “You put your powder in ‘ere.” Francis picked up the end of the rope and held it over a burning candle for a second until it started smoking. “This is ‘ere the match. You gotta be careful of this so’s it doesn’t touch the flash—
KA-POW!!
The gun went off and my heart leapt into my throat. I could feel the rush of the bullet as it zipped past my head and went through the cabin wall into the next room. The cabin was filled with white smoke that stung my eyes. The powder drifting in the air tasted like rotten eggs. Francis’s eyes were as big as boulders.
“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”
“You almost shot me, Francis!”
“I said it was an accident!”
“Well where’d the bullet go?”
We heard one of the sailors on the upper deck yelling now. “Who fired that musket?!”
“You’re gonna get us in trouble, Francis!” I said. I followed the path of the bullet out of the cabin and into the hallway. It had passed to the other side of the hallway and into the next cabin room -- the powder room. We went inside and I found where the bullet finally stopped. It was lodged an inch deep into a tar-covered plank wall about six inches wide of a large keg of gun powder.
“If you had hit this powder, Francis, you would have blown the whole ship up!”
“Ha ha! That was close!”
His lack of understanding infuriated me. Some of the other passengers who had been sitting in the ‘tweens were now gathering around us. Everyone was curious as to what had happened. I also heard the sailors rushing down from the upper deck into the ‘tweens and I knew we were going to be in trouble.
-- Francis on the Mayflower
from Time Trip #3:
Witness to the First Thanksgiving
Witness to the First Thanksgiving
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4
KILLING FOR COUNTRY
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2
A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3
WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
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