by Valerie Wood
Meg’s thick hair was still streaked with the sticky tar which Lieutenant Boyle had plastered over her and her hands were blackened with it where she had tried to pull it out.
The squall hit suddenly, a strong gale sprang up and heavy rain lashed down and even below decks they could hear the crash of thunder.
The woman and her new baby were now below and he had started to cry. She put him to her breast, but still he wailed. ‘I’ve got no milk,’ she said, rocking him in her arms. She looked up at some of the other women. ‘What can I do? How can I feed him?’
The ship pitched and plunged and many of the women and children fell to the floor screaming. The woman and her baby fell too and the baby cried even more. ‘For God’s sake, shut him up,’ a voice shouted. ‘Give him a bit o’ pap or something.’
Someone gave the woman a piece of bread and she put it in her mouth to moisten and then placed a morsel in the child’s mouth. He coughed and spluttered and started to scream; the ship heeled and they were flung over once again and first one and then another of the women started to be sick and they heard the sound of the men retching from behind their barrier.
‘We’re going to die,’ a woman shrieked. ‘We’re trapped like rats in here.’ She pushed her way towards the locked door and started to hammer with her fists. ‘Let me out. Let me out!’
Meg strode forward and smacked the woman across the face. ‘Stop that,’ she roared. ‘We might be going to die, but shouting and screaming isn’t going to help. Now get back to your place!’
As she passed the woman with the baby, the mother held him up towards her. ‘Have you any milk?’ she asked pathetically. ‘He’s hungry.’
‘Me?’ Meg held onto the bunk as the ship rolled. ‘I’ve got no milk! I’ve never had any bairns.’
The woman continued to hold him up. ‘Please,’ she appealed. ‘Somebody! My milk’s gone.’
Meg took the child from her, nestling him on her shoulder. ‘Rest on your bunk,’ she said. ‘Mebbe it’ll come back. I’ll tek him for a bit.’
The child feeling another presence stopped his mewling, but sought with his mouth towards Meg’s cheek. ‘No use searching, young fella, I’ve got nowt that you’d want.’ She took him back to the bunk and sat with him next to Emily, who was lying flat on her back. Some of the other women were sitting or lying on the floor to reduce the effect of the ship’s pitching and rolling.
‘Give him a drop of water,’ Emily suggested. ‘There’s some clean in the jug and it might pacify him.’
‘How?’ Meg asked. ‘I can’t give him a cup!’
‘Dip your finger in the water,’ another woman said, ‘and put it in his mouth. I used to do that with my bairns.’ She nodded her head as if remembering and then started to weep.
Meg wiped her hand on her skirt and dipped her finger into the jug of water, then put her finger to the baby’s mouth. ‘Hey, he’s tekking it,’ she said. ‘Ha, it tickles!’
The vessel pitched again and Meg clutched the child to her. They heard a crash above deck and water trickled in through the seams of the ship, soaking their blankets.
Emily watched Meg as she held the baby and thought of the child she had lost. If he had lived, I wonder how things would have been? Would we both be starving somewhere in the streets of Hull? Would I have had to live on charity? She thought of what Mr Linton had suggested to her, that she live with him as his housekeeper. I didn’t think that he would stay in Australia, I thought he would be sailing on to some other land or else going back to England. But he says that he is going to buy a small farm! I find that so surprising. He was disappointed, I think, when I told him that I had promised to stay with Meg.
‘He’s gone to sleep,’ Meg said. ‘Fancy that. I’ve settled him.’ She picked her way through the women lying on the deck, back to the child’s mother. She was lying with her back to her. ‘I’ve brought ’babby back,’ she whispered. ‘He’s gone to sleep.’
‘Keep him, will you?’ The woman turned towards her. Her voice was weak and breathless. ‘Just for a bit. I feel that bad. His name’s Ralph,’ she added.
‘Well, I don’t feel too good myself,’ Meg began, but the woman turned her back again, so there was nothing Meg could do but take him back to her bunk, where she lay down and held him in the crook of her arm.
The ship shook and groaned and they heard the rattle of anchors as she rode out the storm. The bilges overflowed and the convicts prayed and cursed and all were sick, so that the stench of vomit and the oppressive heat became intolerable until, when they thought they could bear it no longer, the door was opened and a glimmer of light appeared from the deck above.
‘What a stink!’ The guard who opened the door retched as the stench came up to meet him. ‘Get a gang together and get this lot cleaned up.’ He gave out terse instructions. ‘Come on, all of you, up on deck. We’ll have to hose you down.’
Buckets of sea water mixed with disinfectant were thrown over the prisoners as they came up. ‘Poor pathetic wretches,’ Clavell said as he stood next to Philip watching them. ‘And worse to come when we land.’
Philip was watching for Emily, he hoped that she had withstood the storm and hadn’t been ill. But he couldn’t see her for the crush of women and now the men were coming out too. He cast his eyes around the deck and saw a woman edging her way towards the forecastle, part of the deck which was out of bounds to the convicts. He lifted his head and saw her clamber onto the bulwarks. ‘Ahoy there,’ he shouted and started forward. ‘Stop her!’
The woman turned for an instant and he thought he recognized her, then she lifted her arms high and hurled herself over the side.
‘Man overboard! Man overboard,’ came the cry and the crowd rushed to the side. ‘Who was it? Did you see? I didn’t see anybody. What happened?’ The sea rose and fell as the great ship with its press of canvas billowing, drew on, but the woman had gone.
The captain was called, but there was nothing to be done. A report would have to be written, but who was she? No-one seemed to know, though there were three people who had an inkling. Philip said nothing, and Emily and Meg looked down at the baby. ‘Poor bairn,’ Meg said softly and touched his cheek. ‘You’re going to need a new Ma now.’
‘Mr Linton,’ Emily asked later, ‘would it be possible to have fresh goat milk for the new baby?’
‘I should think so, you will have to ask the storekeeper. Can the mother not feed him herself?’
She shook her head and looked away. ‘No, her milk has gone.’
‘Is she sick? Perhaps Mr Clavell should see her!’
‘She’s resting,’ she said quickly.
‘Ah!’ She saw perception in his eyes. ‘Yes, I see. Well, see the storekeeper. Tell him to come to me for authorization if he needs it.’
She smiled. ‘Thank you. Meg and I will look after him until we land.’
They were more than half-way through the voyage and the days stretched in boredom. The captain and his officers organized the convicts into groups in which they could learn to read and write; the women were given old sheets to make petticoats and bonnets and clothes for the children, and the younger convicts played leapfrog with the crew as a form of exercise, but still the days dragged on. Then one day came the cry, ‘Land ahoy,’ from the men on the yards and everyone rushed to see their first glimpse of land in weeks.
The coast of Rio de Janeiro was in sight and many of the convicts thought that they had reached their destination and started to gather together their meagre possessions. ‘Not yet! Not yet!’ The officers laughed. ‘You’ve many weeks to go before your feet touch land.’
They encountered more storms and the winds became hurricane strength, the rain lashed down and the convicts grew sicker and more weary of their confinement in the dungeon-like accommodation. The ship wallowed for days as the seas ran high and a northerly rain squall blew. The port anchor was let go, and the Flying Swan hove to as she rode broadside to the storm, dipping and bucking, the decks awash with the waves
and her masts bare of sail.
Finally the storms abated and the convicts crept out like rats from a hole, too exhausted and sick to do more than lie on the deck. The skies cleared, the sun grew hotter and they rounded the Cape of Good Hope into the Southern Ocean and the last leg of their journey.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The baby thrived on the goat’s milk and Emily became increasingly anxious as she saw how attached Meg had become to him. ‘You might not be able to keep him,’ she said, as she wielded the borrowed scissors on Meg’s tangled hair.
‘Cut it short,’ Meg said fiercely. ‘Go on. Shorter. Shorter! And I’ll worry about ’bairn when we reach land, not afore.’
Meg’s hair dropped to the deck and some of the women gathered round to watch. ‘Cut mine, will you? I’m lousy,’ one of them asked; they were all scratching with head lice.
‘It’ll look as if you’ve been punished,’ said another scornfully. ‘That’s what they do to the women in Parramatta if they’ve misbehaved.’
‘Well, I don’t care what anybody thinks.’ Meg ran her fingers through her short curls. ‘I feel better already.’
Emily stood back to admire her handiwork. Meg looked taller and more dignified now that her unruly dishevelled hair had gone, and her strong features and fine eyes stood out, making her look quite regal. I’m tempted to cut my own, she thought, but she had secretly borrowed Philip Linton’s hairbrush when he wasn’t in his cabin and the shine was coming back to her long hair.
‘Emily,’ he said, when she returned the scissors to him, ‘have you thought any more about what I asked you?’ He flushed slightly. ‘I mean about you coming to be my housekeeper?’
She looked down at the floor. It was what she wanted to do more than anything, just to be near to him. These last few weeks had been an awakening to her. He had been kind and considerate, much more than he needed to have been, and each waking moment when she was away from him, her thoughts had only been of him. But I’m being foolish, she thought as she strove for an answer, it will only end in heartache when he returns to his ship.
‘What would I do when you return home to England?’ She raised the question which had been bothering her. ‘Where would I go then?’
‘If I went, it would only be for a short time, nine months, a year at the most. You would stay to look after things.’
‘Alone?’ Fear was in her eyes. ‘I’m a convict woman, Mr Linton, it wouldn’t be allowed.’
‘You can’t go to Parramatta!’ He stepped forward and gripped her hand urgently. ‘I’ve heard such terrible things!’
The ship heeled to starboard and she fell against him, putting her arms up to steady herself. She saw him swallow hard and she disengaged herself from his grasp. ‘I can’t leave Meg,’ she whispered. ‘She’s my friend.’
‘You must!’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t take two women as housekeepers.’
‘The women are saying that Sydney is full of black savages.’ She changed the subject, embarrassed by his intense gaze. ‘Why would you want to live there?’
‘Once it was, but not now. I’m told it’s a fine town with magnificent buildings; built by convicts it’s true, but there are many respectable people there. Business people, traders, sheep farmers and landowners. Australia is a growing country with a lot of potential.’
‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘do you intend to give up your naval career to live there, and not go back to England?’
He looked at her and there was a depth of feeling in his eyes that she couldn’t understand. ‘No.’ His voice was low and steady. ‘I didn’t say that.’
She left his cabin feeling confused and miserable. She desperately wanted to go with him. She knew that he would take care of her, he had behaved admirably, as a gentleman should and she thought of how firm his arms had felt as he’d caught her from falling.
‘Meg,’ she whispered as they lay side by side on the planking that night. It was after ten o’clock but the women had been allowed to stay on deck. ‘Have you ever been kissed by a man?’
Meg turned towards her in surprise. ‘Kissed by a man? Me? No, ’course not! Men don’t kiss women like me. They kiss their wives or mistresses. Not whores!’
‘Oh!’ she said softly.
‘Why?’ Meg asked. ‘Have you?’
‘No. I just wondered what it would be like, that’s all.’ She lay dreaming, thinking of Philip Linton and how she thought that he had almost kissed her when he’d caught her. But I suppose that I’m quite glad that he didn’t, she mused reluctantly. It might have spoiled everything.
‘Land ho!’ This time as they heard the call from the masthead the next day and gathered to see the dark smudge of land on the horizon, they knew that at last here was their final destination. Some of the convicts, men as well as the women, wept as they viewed their new homeland and full realization came that they might never see England, their friends and family ever again.
‘My poor bairns,’ wept a woman with small children clinging to her skirts. ‘What’ll become of ’em?’
‘Me poor old ma!’ A boy, no more than fourteen, brushed away the tears that coursed down his cheeks. ‘She’ll die and I’ll not know of it.’
Emily wept too, even though her brother and her friend Meg were there on the ship with her. She wept for her childhood, left behind by the deep muddy waters of the Humber. She wept for the humble cottage that she had shared with Sam and Granny Edwards; for her mother and father and for Mary Edwards, who had a special place in her heart, and she pictured her amongst the flowers in her sweet-smelling shop in the heart of Hull. I want to go back, she despaired. I belong in those hummocky plains of Holderness, I belong under the wide cloudy skies which seem to stretch on for ever. Not out here in this foreign land.
Meg stood with her chin held high, clutching the child who wasn’t hers. She had told Emily that she was glad that she was here, that England had done nothing for her and that perhaps in this new country she had a future.
She’s like Joe, Emily mused. He says the same. Perhaps they will do well, if they can endure it, for she was under no illusion that there were terrors ahead and that only the fittest and strongest would survive. And they are both fit and strong, life has made them so. They will take a few falls and still get up again. But will I? Am I strong enough to outlast my sentence?
The wind blew strongly and they shivered on deck and below it, for here at the other side of the world it was almost winter when they had expected summer. The women had only their cotton dresses and few had shawls, and the children amongst them were mostly in rags. Emily and Meg had made the baby, Ralph, some gowns and bonnets out of cotton sheeting which they had begged from the sick ward, and when they were up on the upper deck, Meg tucked him inside her bodice to protect him from the elements.
‘Look,’ she whispered to him as they sailed past Botany Bay towards the bay of Sydney. ‘Here is your new country, your new land.’
Captain Martin had taken the decision to sail into Sydney Harbour even though he had been warned by other ships’ masters that there might be trouble from the residents. For two years transportation to New South Wales had been halted as the immigrant residents and free settlers and the critics in England argued against the barbaric transportation system. The transportees had been re-directed to Van Dieman’s Land and Western Australia, which were crying out for free labour. Now because of pressure from Lord Grey of the Colonial Office, transportation to New South Wales had resumed under a different name, assisted exiles; but the people of Sydney had blocked the harbour against the transport ships and had refused to let the convicts land.
‘English law is a labyrinth of confusion,’ Captain Martin muttered as the ship drew towards Port Jackson. ‘And transportation is one of the worst iniquities of all. Worse even than slavery, for the black savages were ignorant and many of them probably had a better life after they were captured, than they had been used to. These are white people we are condemning to a soulless life.’
Ph
ilip glanced at his commanding officer. Not for him to disagree with his superior, but he couldn’t help but say, ‘How do we know the black slaves were ignorant, sir? They may well have had a superior life to ours, and it should be on the conscience of all white men that such cruelty was administered.’
‘Wait until you meet up with some of these Aborigine fellows before you make up your mind, Mr Linton. You will find that some of them barely speak English, even after fifty years of English rule.’
Philip excused himself and went to find Clavell. When he wasn’t drunk, he was the most intelligent, articulate man Philip had ever come across and he had a different opinion entirely from Captain Martin.
He wasn’t drunk now, but quite sober and was busy packing his medicines into his portable medicine chest. ‘No real problems on this trip, Mr Linton. One birth, three deaths, and only a few with fever, including the captain. That’s what happens if you keep a clean and healthy ship. Plus the lemon or lime to keep down the scurvy, I’m a big believer in that, plenty of citrus juice, clean water and not too much meat.’ He straightened up and cracked his head on the ceiling. ‘Shan’t be doing that for much longer!’ he winced. ‘Come and see me in Parramatta will you?’ he said abruptly. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll get many visitors. That’s if you’re staying?’
‘I don’t know what to do, sir. Emily – Emily has promised to stay with her friend and she’ll probably end up in Parramatta.’
‘Mmm.’ The surgeon pursed his lips. ‘Well, I’ll keep an eye out for her as best I can if she does go there, but you know, I’m inclined to say to you buy or rent a small farm anyway. If she goes to Parramatta she won’t want to stay!’
‘And could I bring her out?’
‘Good Lord, yes.’ He snapped the lid of his box closed and strapped it with a leather strap. ‘The place was always besieged by men wanting a wife. Of course, what the authorities are wanting now are families, men with wives and children, even though they may not be married in law. They want to change the image of a country filled with convict labour. They want families here to create the next generation. They want to be seen as respectable! That’s why the immigration scheme is opening up. The country is massive, Philip, it can’t ever be filled. There’s a great future for people who are prepared to work hard. There’s land by the thousand acres waiting for young men and women to snap it up.’