She thought she would be lucky if she survived long enough to be transported.
An hour or two later Mary was as despairing as everyone else. All around her was moaning, groaning, crying and the occasional demented scream from a woman who appeared to have lost her wits. One woman was suckling a newborn baby, and Mary was told it had been delivered down here by the other women.
The beams were too low for them to stand up, so there was no alternative but to sit or lie on the wooden shelves. When the evening meal, a thin floury soup and stale bread, was brought in, the women fought to get it, and by the time Mary managed to reach the pot, everything was gone. The rats didn’t even wait for total darkness to fall, they scuttled along the beams and under the bed shelves, and even jumped across bodies.
But to Mary, the most terrifying prospect was that she could expect nothing better. She had learned they were never allowed up on deck, their quarters were never cleaned, they couldn’t wash their clothes, and the slop buckets were emptied only once a day.
She fell asleep eventually, tucked between Bessie on the inside, closest to the ship’s hull, and a girl called Nancy who was only fourteen. Taking up the outside position on their shelf was Anne, a woman of over fifty.
Mary’s last thought before sleep overcame her was that there had to be some way to escape. The other women had insisted there wasn’t, but from what she’d observed of them, they were all dull-witted.
She would find a way.
Over the next few days Mary watched and listened to her fellow prisoners. While her whole being wanted to hammer on the door, scream for release, even to insist that she’d rather be hanged than endure this, she knew she had to control herself. By staying quiet, learning about the running of the hulk and observing the other women, she would arm herself with knowledge.
She noted that many of the women were so deeply immersed in their misery that they barely moved from their sleeping places and hardly spoke at all, and she guessed they hoped that death would come speedily to release them.
At first Mary had every sympathy with them, but as she began slowly to accept her imprisonment and get to know those women who still had a spark of life and hope in them, so her feelings for the remainder turned to scorn and irritation.
Almost all of the women who talked and even found something to laugh about now and then had been convicted of theft. Nancy, the fourteen-year-old, had taken some food home to her family from the house in Bodmin where she was a scullery maid. Anne had taken a dress from the laundry where she worked in Truro. There was a woman who had acted as a look-out for a cut-purse, and another had helped herself to a blanket left out on a washing-line to air. Yet another had stolen a couple of silver teaspoons. None of the women were hardened criminals, they had all committed opportunist crimes, out of need.
When Mary admitted she was convicted of High Toby, she saw awe on the faces of her audience. Back in Exeter Castle, she had learned the hierarchy of crime, and a highway robber was at the top of the pile. To Mary it seemed a little absurd that snatching a hat and parcels should be considered in the same light as waylaying a stage-coach. But she supposed she had technically robbed on the highway, as opposed to stealing from a shop or dwelling-house.
While she knew that in reality she was exactly the same as most of these women, just another country girl who had fallen by the wayside, she saw immediately that it would be smarter to keep that to herself. Status was as crucial to survival as food and drink. She would make it work for her.
Another thing she observed was that not all the women were filthy and in rags. Four of them had fairly decent clothes, their hair looked as if it had been washed recently, and they were plumper, less strained and hollow-eyed. Because of their appearance, and the fact that some of the prisoners gave them the cold shoulder, it didn’t take long for Mary to realize these women had friends among the guards and Marines. Clearly they were trading their bodies for extra comforts.
‘They ought to be ashamed of themselves,’ one old biddy exclaimed, pursing her lips in disgust. By the way she coughed she had to be in the grip of consumption. ‘Dirty whores!’
Mary had always believed that any woman who sold her body was beyond redemption. In Plymouth she had seen whores grappling with seamen in alleys, and heard about the terrible diseases they passed on, and she felt almost faint with disgust.
Yet as the days slowly passed on the Dunkirk, and the horrors seemed to grow greater rather than diminish, she found herself looking at the whole question a little differently. While she still thought that offering her body in return for food and a clean dress would be the surest way to hell and damnation, surely she was in hell already? She intended to survive at all costs, and if sacrificing her chastity would prevent a slow death from starvation, she was prepared to do it.
It wasn’t just the desire for more food and the chance to get out of this stinking hold into fresh air once in a while. Escape was most prevalent in Mary’s mind, and for that she needed her chains to be removed. While there was no certainty that a lover would do this for her, she hoped she could persuade him to. Maybe if he grew to like her enough he’d even help her escape.
Sadly, she had no idea how to go about getting a ‘friend’ on the upper decks. The ugly brutes who came to collect the slop bucket or bring the rations had to be the lowliest of the crew, and they were the only ones she had any contact with, and that only briefly.
At the end of her third week she was growing desperate. Her twentieth birthday had passed at the end of April, and May Day, with all its happy memories of village celebrations, had made her spirits plummet even further. She would stand all day at the open hatch, looking out seawards, watching the sunshine glint on the water, aching so badly to be out in it that she thought she would lose her reason.
She knew all forty women’s names, where they came from, their crimes and about their families. She had even seen a change in Catherine Fryer and Mary Haydon’s attitude towards her, perhaps because they saw she was stronger and quicker-witted than anyone else, and it was better to be on a winning side than a losing one.
Mary had spoken to some of the men prisoners too, at least shouted to them through the barred grille. Because they were often taken out to work ashore, she’d learned from them the names of the few humane officers on board.
Lieutenant Captain Watkin Tench was the one who had captured Mary’s interest. The men said he was young, and that they found him fair and reasonable, an intelligent man, who had been held prisoner himself during the American war. He sounded perfect for Mary’s plan, but as yet she had no idea how to get his attention.
She had gone out of her way to befriend all the women who were labelled as whores. It wasn’t difficult as they were only too glad of someone taking an interest in them, and Mary discovered that in the main they were very like her, a bit daring, more amusing than the other women, and warm-hearted.
But although they often gave her titbits of food or a new ribbon for her hair, and passed on rags when she was menstruating, they were all tight-mouthed about their men and how they got themselves picked in the first place. Mary could understand why. They weren’t going to take the risk of losing their lovers and the comforts that came with them to another prisoner.
She had thought of picking a fight with another woman, to create such a big disturbance that she would be hauled out of the hold. But it was likely she’d be flogged for that, and even if she got to meet Tench, under those circumstances it was hardly likely to endear her to him.
One evening, the pot of soup and bread were brought in as usual, and as always, the strongest pushed their way forward to grab the lion’s share. It was only the fear of dying of starvation that made the women fight to get to the soup. It was invariably cold and watery, mainly barley with a few bits of vegetable and strands of rank meat. It had taken Mary several days to overcome her nausea before she felt able to elbow her way in to get her share.
That evening, she was up by the door talking to Lucy Perk
ins, a girl from St Austell, when the men unlocked it to come in. For once she was in a strong position to get a better helping, but as she took her place, and the women behind her began to push and shove, she glanced backwards.
It was a shock to see the plaintive faces of those who were too sick and weak to get off their beds to collect their share. Some were holding out their bowls, their feeble cries for help drowned by the clamour, and their distress unnoticed by anyone but herself.
Mary hated injustice. Even as a small child she had despised bigger children who bullied younger and weaker ones. Knowing that healthy women capable of fighting their way forward were sentencing the sick ones to death by depriving them of food, she suddenly saw red.
Turning in the queue, she held her arms out wide, blocking the way to the soup pot. ‘Let the sick ones have their share first,’ she commanded.
There was a hush, surprise on every grimy face. ‘We should take care of the sick,’ she said in a loud, clear voice. ‘They might treat us like animals down here, but we are women, not savages.’ Seeing Bessie at the back of the queue, she shouted to her, ‘Get their bowls and bring them here, Bessie. When they are served everyone else can have theirs.’
Mary heard the rumble of dissent, and it frightened her. But she had no intention of backing down. She was aware that the guards were watching from the grille on the door, and she hoped that if the stronger women rushed her, they would step in.
‘Who d’you think you are? Fuckin’ royalty?’ Aggie Crew, one of the most ragged and dirty of the women, shouted out.
Mary had crossed swords with this woman on several previous occasions. In Mary’s opinion she was totally brutalized. She stole from others, she didn’t even attempt to wash her face and hands when the morning washing bucket was brought down. She belittled anyone with a shred of decency left. She had sneered at Mary for washing out the rags she used when she had her menses, and for her attempts to rally some of the other women to join her in asking for buckets of water and mops to clean the floor. Now Aggie’s thin face was alight with malice, and she was clearly spoiling for a fight.
‘I don’t think I’m anyone other than a woman who doesn’t want to behave like an animal,’ Mary said, looking hard at her. ‘It isn’t right to act like this. The food should be shared equally, and I’m going to see it is.’
Bessie squeezed through the crowd with the sick women’s bowls. ‘Fill them, Jane,’ Mary ordered the very young pregnant girl who was standing right by the soup pot, her hand on the ladle. Mary had talked to Jane a great deal, for as if it wasn’t enough to be transported for stealing a candlestick, the parson who had made the complaint to the constables had also raped her.
Jane dutifully began to ladle soup into the bowls, and Mary ordered those standing nearest to take them over to the sick ones. ‘You’ll get your share next,’ she said by way of an inducement.
For a while it seemed as if Mary had won the day. The sick got their rations, and the other women were queuing properly for theirs, but as Mary turned to look at the soup pot, to make sure there was enough to go round, she was suddenly hit over the head with a bowl. She fell forward, knocking another woman off her feet, and all at once Aggie Crew was screaming blue murder, trying to entice the other women into hitting Mary.
The door flew open and in came the guards, lashing out with their sticks. They hauled Mary to her feet and unceremoniously dragged her out.
She knew they must have watched the whole proceedings through the grille on the door, but she also knew better than to hope they’d be on her side. Back in Exeter Castle, Dick Sullion had explained to her that the whole business of running prisons was put out to private tender to save the government money. As he pointed out, it was a good business for those who had no scruples; they hired the most brutish men as gaolers, ones who weren’t above cutting corners with the rations. And in turn the owners turned a blind eye to their men taking bribes and treating their charges with the utmost brutality.
The two who held her by the arms now were typical of their breed, with their ugly, foxy faces and broken teeth. There was no light in their eyes.
‘Why me?’ she asked them when she’d caught her breath. ‘It wasn’t me who hit anyone.’
‘You were inciting riot,’ one said. ‘Bloody troublemaker.’
‘Take me to Lieutenant Captain Tench,’ she said boldly. ‘I’ll explain it to him.’
They didn’t reply, just dragged her on along the passage and up the companionway, out on to the deck. Mary was sure she was going to be tied up somewhere for a flogging but at that moment, as her lungs filled with the sweet, fresh air after breathing effluent for so long, she didn’t care.
She saw the night sky, sprinkled with a million stars, and the moon cutting a silver path across the dark waters of the river to the shore, and it seemed to be a sign that this was her moment, the opportunity she’d hoped for.
‘I want to see Tench,’ she screamed out at the top of her lungs. ‘Get him now.’
One of the guards struck her, knocking her down on to the deck. ‘Shut up,’ he hissed at her, and added a stream of profanities.
All at once Mary saw what they were about. They hadn’t dragged her out of the cell for formal punishment. They were intending to have their way with her, then shove her back later, with no one the wiser.
Determination was one of Mary’s strongest attributes. While she might be prepared to be bedded by someone who would feed her, allow her to wash and perhaps show her some affection, she wasn’t going to let herself be taken by a couple of rutting animals. She guessed too by the way they’d tried to silence her that there were men on the Dunkirk who didn’t approve of prisoners being raped. So she yelled again and again, and when one of them tried to cover her mouth, she bit his hand and punched him, screaming still louder for Tench.
‘What’s going on?’ a voice boomed out, and as the two men let go of her, she saw a slim male figure silhouetted in an open doorway to one of the many sheds that were built on the deck.
‘Mr Tench?’ Mary yelled out. ‘They dragged me out, I’ve done nothing wrong. Help me, please.’
‘Stop that yelling and come in here,’ he said. ‘And you too,’ he added to the men.
The shed was part ward room, part office. At the centre of it was a table littered with papers and lit by a couple of candles. It looked to Mary as though this man had been writing, for there was an open notebook and an inkwell in front of the stool he’d obviously just vacated.
Mary had no way of knowing if this was Watkin Tench. But the gold braid on his well-fitting red jacket and his spotless white breeches proved he was an officer, and he spoke like a gentleman. He was of slender build, with dark crinkly hair and brown eyes, and she thought he was around twenty-four or -five. His face was unremarkable, with small, neat features and clear and glowing skin. While he looked irritated at being disturbed, he certainly didn’t give the impression of being bad-tempered by nature.
‘Your name?’ he asked curtly.
‘Mary Broad, sir,’ she said. ‘I was trying to make the women let the sick ones have some soup,’ she added quickly. ‘Some of them didn’t like it, and one hit me, then these two dragged me out.’
‘She was trying to start a fight,’ one of the guards claimed. ‘We had to separate her.’
‘Wait outside, you two,’ the young officer said.
They left, one muttering something under his breath. Once the door was closed, the officer perched on his stool and looked hard at Mary.
‘Why were you calling out my name?’ he asked.
Mary felt a sense of relief that she had found the right man. ‘I’d been told you were fair,’ she said.
Tench nodded noncommittally, and asked Mary to explain what had happened.
Now that she had a platform to air her complaints, she spared him nothing. She said how the strongest women got the food while the weakest were starving, and that in her opinion there wasn’t enough food to keep so many women alive.
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br /> ‘Our punishment is supposed to be transportation,’ she said heatedly. ‘Surely it’s wrong to try and kill us before we ever get put on a ship?’
Tench had been surprised enough to hear his name being called out, and even more so by this woman’s obvious intelligence. But most of all he was touched that she had the courage to speak up for her weaker fellow prisoners.
He had been a prisoner of war himself in America and had feared he would die from the terrible conditions there. When he arrived at this posting on the Dunkirk, he was horrified to find his fellow countrymen were capable of even worse barbarities. To his distress he found there was nothing a Marine officer could do to prevent it. The hulks were run by private companies, and the Marines were merely there to keep order, without any control over the management.
When he had voiced his strong feelings on the matter he’d been severely reprimanded, and as he was only a junior officer without anyone higher up in agreement with him, there was nothing more he could do, and in truth he had become apathetic. When he took men to work outside, he was kindly to them; he tried to make certain the guards were giving the full quota of rations to the prisoners, and when someone was brought to him for punishment he was always fair. But he knew that wasn’t enough.
Mary’s Cornish dialect sliced through his apathy. He had spent his childhood in Penzance and had a store of happy memories of its natives. He felt compelled to find out a little more about this woman before dismissing her. Realizing she must have foregone her own supper during this skirmish, he put his head outside the door and ordered one of the men to bring something from the galley.
‘Am I to be flogged?’ Mary asked, once he’d shut the door again. She didn’t hear what he had said to the men, and assumed he’d sent one of them to fetch someone of a higher rank than himself.
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