The Internovella - Chapter 2 - continued

did not. A damp and heaving, sweat and blood stained ark of ribs for a hull, and patchwork sails. A slave trader - blacks in from Africa, but little to take back except tobacco, potatoes, cotton and whatever else they could pack down below. In the captains words, "Scum in and scum out".

Mary felt uncomfortable, the ship leaked and smelt, the rope was rotten, the crew were threatening. But her Dad had made a brave and decisive decision: America was not for them. It was not to be - the New World which was a phoney conundrum, run by gangsters and zealots was finished with, he had decided to make a return to the values, morals and principles that he had grown up with in that damp and misty island.