Richard Testrake - (Sea Command 2) Read Free

space. In due course, he fell asleep and did not waken until the lighter was at the quay.
    A shore crew came aboard to unload the casks. Mullins, refreshed now, emerged from his hiding place and joined in the work. Some of the hands might have wondered at this blood-stained shirtless man helping with their labor but nothing was said immediately. When men were called out of the lighter to assist on shore, Mullins followed. Unobserved, he slipped away and hid between some buildings until the work was done.
    Now the task was to try to get away from the harbor area to find a refuge. His mind was still cloudy or he might have just given himself up then and there. That evening, when it began to grow cold, Mullins decided it was time to find a better place to hide.
    At this time, most of the local inhabitants were home eating supper, so there were few to notice this strange man wandering through their town. Some might have thought him to be a drunk, wandering home after a fight of some kind. When a pair of French gendarmes began following him, he thought it might soon be all over.
    It was then he noticed a shabby, run-down church off the street. He walked to it and opened the door as though he had every right. It was very dim inside, with only a single oil lamp to moderate the darkness. There were a few benches and a table up front that apparently served as a lectern and perhaps an altar. Sitting on one of the back benches, he bowed his head as if in prayer.
    A door opened in the opposite end of the building and a woman stepped through. In the dim light, she appeared to be a stout woman of middle age, one who had perhaps seen her share of misfortune. Mullins did not acknowledge her presence and she walked to him, addressing him in French.
    Mullins had had a French tutor as a boy and still remembered a few words of the language, but was unable to carry on an intelligent conversation in French. He knew he should just get up and leave, but he did not have the energy. Unresponsive to the woman, she tried another language, which he took to be German, of which he had no knowledge whatever.
    Then, the frustrated woman said, in perfectly understandable English, “Well, I suppose there’s no point asking you if you speak English, is there?”
    Surprised, Mullins blurted out that he did speak English. With that, the woman ordered him to follow her, and she led him to a room in the rear of the church. It apparently served as a storeroom, but there was a table, and what appeared to be the remains of the woman’s last meal. A heel of bread, a little oil, a bit of cheese and a quarter bottle of wine. She shoved it in front of Mullins and ordered him to eat. A few minutes later, he felt much better than he had in days.
    As he finished, she was able to get the details of his presence on mainland France. He held nothing back, reasoning that she could do to him what she wished. He thought if she decided to help him, he should give her what information she needed.
    When he finished, she explained her own presence. She was Martha Baker. Her husband had been a fisherman from Plymouth with his own boat. She related he had been a good provider but had begun a search for God when their only son was lost at sea on a friend’s boat. Eventually, in addition to fishing, he began to preach his idea of the Gospel to people he met on the street. This was not well received by many, and eventually, he began to be treated as a pariah.
    During this time of trouble, a storm at sea left him stranded on the shore in France for several days, just before the Revolution. Appalled at the seeming irreverence for religion he saw there, he decided to locate to France and build a church. The idea in his mind was to bring religion to these people. He could already speak a sort of French, having conversed with French fishermen for much of his life.
    Mrs. Baker was not anxious to make the move, but she was a dutiful wife and would go with her husband. They sold everything they