Haste ye back!

The horns sounded as the ship readied to leave the harbour. Hundreds of people from the town, mainly the women and children that were left, stood, waving and shouting their goodbyes as they watched the menfolk leave the village to hopefully collect their fortune. The ship slowly moved away from the harbour wall.

All the men folk on the boat were jostling for a position to wave to their loved ones who they wouldn’t see for at least the next three months. The thought of all that money, money that just wasn’t available working in the village to support their families was a promise they could not turn down. Dressed up in their finest outfits, a suit, tie and hat that was only brought out for special occasions or church, old shoes that had been polished hard to look good for the day and with a small suitcase each carrying some work clothes and a personal item to remind them of home.

“Everything else they could need would be provided by the new employers” they had been told. There were tears from the children as they waved the fathers off as they could not really understand why this was such a great opportunity for their family and how eventually the whole town would thrive and prosper. The women folk cheered, waved and relished in the thought of their husbands returning in a few short months, ‘with their suitcase filled with money, gold and gifts’. The women and children would keep the town running and the homes tidy while tending to the lands as they awaited the return of their loved ones.

It was almost to easy. All that was involved for the volunteers was to sail across the ocean to a newly found land, an unexplored land filled with 'promise and wonder', work in the new mines that were being built for the next three months and they would be paid handsomely for their efforts. They could then “return free of charge on the next ship or extend their stay to fill another suitcase with money for their loved ones” The gentleman from the agency boasted that “there was plenty to go around”. It had all been explained so clearly to them by the well spoken man in the beautifully tailored suit. He had visited the town a few weeks earlier and held a meeting in the town hall where he explained how it would all work and how all their lives would change in a matter of months.

The horns sounded again and the ship pulled out of the harbour and into the open water.

Journal Fund

Thank you for reading this story and I do hope you enjoyed it. I enjoyed writing it, if you would like to support me and my writing you can buy me a much needed writing book or a coffee to keep me going, this would be very much appreciated and will encourage me to keep on writing new stories.