Remember Me

by Lesley Pearse

  Up on deck she was free from the carping and squabbling of the other women. She could feel the wind in her hair, the sun on her face, and she forgot the filth and smells below. Her fears for the future vanished like a feather tossed up into the wind. She felt as free as the seabirds who followed in the ship’s wake.

  The sounds on deck were almost as clamorous as those below: the roar of the sea, shouts from sailors, the rasps of pulled ropes and the creaking of sails. But they were good sounds, and the wind and sea spray were so clean and pure that she felt intoxicated.

  She was glad most of the women found the sea frightening and the wind too cold to stay up there for long. Alone, gripping the deck rail, she could pretend to herself that she was an heiress taking a trip to Spain or even America. She could tell herself truthfully that she was doing what she’d always wanted to do, travelling the world.

  Once they were underway, Mary found the sailors very much like the men back in Fowey, strong, wiry, friendly souls who grinned at her cheerfully. Without other women around she sometimes got opportunities to talk to them and ask them questions about the route to Botany Bay. Some of them were only too happy to tell her about the ports along the way they had visited before, and explained that they had to go right across the Atlantic Ocean to Rio, instead of down the African coast, to take advantage of the Trade Winds. Mary wondered how many of them had originally been press-ganged into the Navy, for they seemed to have some sympathy for the prisoners, and resentment towards most of the Marines who had precious little to do on the voyage.

  Many of the Marines had brought their wives and children along too. The women looked fearful whenever they took a walk along the decks, and Mary felt sorry for them even if they were too snooty to smile. They were as much prisoners as she was, but while she knew just how harmless most of the real prisoners were, these women probably imagined they were all desperadoes, waiting for an opportunity to take over the ship and kill every soul on board.

  Mary was glad that she seldom saw Tench on deck, for she could feel her body changing, even if it wasn’t apparent to anyone else. Her breasts were fuller, her belly had a curve to it. She was dismayed that her liaison with Graham had led to this predicament, something she’d never really considered could happen to her, but she was becoming resigned to it. Part of this acceptance was because she’d been brought up to believe that all babies were a gift from God and therefore must be welcomed wholeheartedly. Whilst she had some fears about the delivery, and her own ability to be a good mother, she felt strangely warmed by the prospect of having someone all her own to love and nurture. In good weather she would find a sheltered place to sit up on deck, and lapse into day-dreams about her child. She hoped for a boy, and imagined him a little like Luke, a son of one of the Marines.

  Luke was seven, a sturdy boy with dark hair and blue eyes, who smiled at her when his mother wasn’t looking. Mary liked to watch him trying to help the sailors – he was clearly as keen on sailing as she had been as a girl. As the ship sailed down the coast of France to Spain and the weather became warmer, Luke’s mother often sat with him on deck, helping him to read and write. Mary wished then that she had such skills to pass on to her child.

  It was fear for her baby’s safety that finally made her approach Surgeon White. Her father had always said that ships’ surgeons were either butchers or drunks, but she had never seen White drunk. His jovial face, and his gentle manner when he checked her health just before sailing, didn’t appear to belong to a butcher, either.

  She hadn’t told anyone but Sarah of her predicament, and she was certain no one, especially not Tench, had guessed. But however embarrassing it was to admit it to the doctor, she realized she must face up to it.

  ‘I think I’m with child,’ she blurted out, after first asking him if he could give her something for a cut on her foot which wouldn’t heal.

  He raised one bushy grey eyebrow, then asked her a few questions and got her to lie down so he could feel her belly.

  ‘Will I be all right?’ she asked when he made no comment.

  ‘Of course you will, a birth at sea is no different to one anywhere else,’ he said a little sharply. ‘I’d say it is due in early September, so we’ll be somewhere warmer and more congenial by then. You are strong and healthy, Mary, you’ll be fine.’

  Mary realized then that she had probably conceived at Christmas, the night Spencer Graham had been his most loving.

  ‘Who is the father?’ the surgeon asked, his sharp dark eyes boring into her as if he’d read her thoughts. ‘You must say, Mary, for the father must be made responsible. If it is another convict you can be married, and a Marine can be made to give the child his name.’

  It was surprising to Mary that anyone should care who’d got her pregnant, and even more so that they would take any man to task for it. But she wasn’t prepared to name Graham. Without him she wouldn’t have survived the Dunkirk, and then there were his wife and children who didn’t deserve the hurt of knowing he’d been unfaithful.

  ‘His name, Mary?’ White said more firmly.

  ‘I don’t know who the father is,’ she said, folding her arms in a gesture of defiance.

  ‘I don’t believe that of you,’ he said reprovingly. ‘Some of the other women I might, but not you. Now tell me and leave me to deal with it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she said stubbornly.

  White tutted. ‘Your loyalty is admirable but misplaced, Mary. Do you want your child to have “bastard” on his record of birth?’

  ‘It’s no worse than having a convict for a mother,’ she retorted.

  White shook his head, then dismissed her, with only the parting shot that she must think on it and come back to him if she changed her mind.

  The day following her visit to the surgeon, a storm broke out, and once more the hatches were battened down and Mary was forced to stay in the hold. After the freedom of the deck it was hideous to be trapped again in darkness with the women, most of whom were in the throes of sea sickness. The ship rolled and pitched, the slop buckets overturned, and icy sea water rushed in, soaking them all. All Mary could do was clutch her blanket more tightly round her, cover her nose against the smells, and pray for the storm to pass quickly.

  It took three weeks to reach Santa Cruz in Tenerife, the ship’s first port of call, by which time Mary had got to know a couple of the Devonshire sailors quite well. It was from them she learned that on one of the other transport ships the male convicts had broken through the bulkheads to get at the females, even before they sailed. They said too that the women who had been brought down from the London prisons were vicious, hardened criminals, always fighting among themselves, ready to sell themselves to anyone for a tot of rum.

  This was frightening to Mary, for she had imagined the prisoners on the other ships to be no different to those on the Charlotte. Some of those were bad enough, she knew they’d happily steal pennies from a dead person’s eyes. But at least she knew which ones to watch, and she felt secure in the knowledge that Captain Gilbert would never allow the male prisoners on his ship to threaten the women.

  Although a humane man, he was very strict. On the few occasions when male prisoners were on deck at the same time as women, they were watched carefully by the Marines for any misbehaviour. And the threat of being put back in chains or receiving a flogging was enough to deter both male and female from taking any risks.

  Yet like on the Dunkirk, there were illicit relationships, formed not with the officers, but the Marines and sailors. Mary Haydon and Catherine Fryer were two of the worst offenders, going with any man who would have them. Neither Mary nor Sarah chose to go down this route; they laughed together about it, and said if they couldn’t have an officer then they didn’t want anyone. The truth of the matter was that they didn’t have to fight for survival any more. They had enough to eat now, water to wash with, and after a day on the deck in the sunshine it was preferable to go back to the hold at night than be humiliated and mauled by a rum-soaked sailor
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  The only male prisoner that Mary saw often was Will Bryant, and occasionally Jamie Cox was with him too. The rest of the men weren’t allowed up on deck for long. Whether this was because they outnumbered the crew, or that Captain Gilbert felt the women prisoners and the Marines’ families needed fresh air more, Mary didn’t know, but Will got special privileges. It seemed he had talked his way into being allowed to do some fishing to supplement the ship’s rations, so he spent a good part of every day on deck. Mary admired his resourcefulness, and thought they had a lot in common.

  When the ship dropped anchor in Santa Cruz to take on fresh water and more provisions, the ship’s company were free to go ashore, and once again the prisoners were chained and the hatches closed. It was June and the heat was suffocating, and to be forced to lie sweltering in the darkness after the comparative freedom they’d enjoyed before was intolerable. For Mary it was even more unbearable as now that her belly was swelling she found it impossible to get comfortable on the hard bench, and the lack of fresh air made her nauseous.

  But as they set sail again to Rio in South America, the chains were removed and they were allowed on deck again. One afternoon, Mary was sitting dozing in the sunshine when she heard Will Bryant swearing because his fishing net was torn. She got up and made her way back to the stern where he was sitting and offered to mend it for him.

  He had become even more attractive during the voyage. The increased rations had put flesh back on his body, his eyes were as blue as the sky above, his fair hair and beard bleached by the sun and his skin a golden-brown. He also had an impudent grin and a great deal of cheek.

  ‘You know how to mend a net?’ he asked, looking surprised.

  ‘Would any girl from Fowey not know how to?’ she laughed.

  Mary thought that it was because she was usefully employed mending the net that no one came over and ordered them apart. She and Will spent the whole afternoon chatting together, mostly about Cornwall.

  ‘You’re looking very bonny,’ Will said suddenly. ‘When’s the little ’un due?’

  Mary was stricken with sudden embarrassment. She hadn’t realized anyone other than Surgeon White and Sarah knew. If Will had guessed, maybe Tench knew too!

  ‘September,’ she murmured, blushing to the roots of her hair. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I’ve got eyes,’ Will laughed. ‘It ain’t something you can hide forever, not when the wind blows your dress close to you.’

  Mary felt a little queasy. ‘Does everyone know?’

  Will shrugged. ‘Dunno. Why? Are you scared?’

  ‘A bit,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t want folk to think badly of me, and I don’t know much about babies.’

  ‘Don’t you trouble yourself about what folk think,’ he said with a grin. ‘There’ll be plenty of other women having a babby afore we get there. As for not knowing about babbies, reckon that comes natural like. The other women will help you too, so don’t you fret about nothing.’

  Mary was touched that he could be sensitive, she’d always thought of him as being something of a hard man. A little later he told her he’d heard that a convict on the Alexander, another ship in the fleet, had hidden on the deck in Tenerife and lowered himself into the sea later when it was dark and stolen the rowing boat tied to the stern.

  ‘Damn great lummox gave himself away by going to a Dutch ship and asking to be taken aboard,’ Will laughed. ‘I’d have made for the town and hidden up till the fleet was gone.’

  ‘I used to think about escape all the time on the Dunkirk,’ Mary admitted. ‘There’s no point in thinking on it now, not in my condition. But as soon as the baby’s born, I’ll be watching for an opportunity again.’

  ‘I’ll wait to see what Botany Bay’s like first,’ Will said. ‘If I can fish, build a decent place to live, grow a few vegetables, it might not be so bad.’

  ‘But we don’t know what the prisoners on the other transports are like,’ Mary pointed out. ‘All us lot are from Devon and Cornwall. None of us are real bad ’uns. But I’ve heard tell the women on the Friendship are a tough lot, mostly from London. They got put in irons for fighting among themselves. Once we go ashore in Botany Bay we’ll have them to put up with.’

  ‘Reckon you can handle most kinds of folk,’ Will said. ‘I can too. We’ll get by.’

  It was only a few days later that Tench spoke to Mary up on deck. He asked if she was enjoying the voyage, and explained that he hadn’t had much opportunity to be on deck as he had many duties elsewhere. ‘Are you feeling well?’ he asked, looking at her intently. ‘The surgeon told me you were expecting a child.’

  Mary could only nod. While to some extent she was relieved it was out in the open, she was afraid that he would question her as White had done.

  ‘I don’t pass judgement on others,’ he said gently, as if guessing what she was thinking. ‘I’m just concerned about you. You are lucky White is aboard this ship, he’s a good surgeon. Are you getting enough to eat?’

  Mary nodded again. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

  ‘If you need anything, come to me,’ he said, patting her on the shoulder. ‘I’ll try and get you some fruit in Rio. Scurvy is a menace on these long voyages. But Captain Gilbert appears to be more aware of all our needs than most sea captains.’

  He walked away then, and as Mary watched his slim back, the neatness of his dark hair and the cleanliness of his white breeches, she wished it could have been his child she was carrying.

  There were some terrible storms on the way to Rio. The ship pitched and rolled in the heavy seas, and water rushed into the holds, sweeping the women off their bunks. Again and again they thought they would all perish – every crack of the ship’s timbers appeared to be evidence she was breaking up. Even Mary, who hadn’t suffered from sea sickness before, fell prey to it, retching until she had nothing more to bring up, so weak she could barely move.

  But the storms passed and then there were periods of calm when the ship barely moved at all. It was on one of those days, as Mary stood at the deck rail watching the rest of the fleet, and keeping an eye out for dolphins and porpoises, that Tench suggested she looked among the male prisoners for a husband.

  He didn’t often get the opportunity to speak to her, and even when he did it was never for more than a few minutes, but since the day when he’d told her he knew of her pregnancy, he usually slipped her something when he saw her. Sometimes it was a piece of hard cheese, or a couple of ship’s biscuits; on two occasions it had been a hard-boiled egg. That he cared about her health was enough for Mary. She didn’t want him getting a reprimand from the captain.

  ‘Have you considered how it will be when we get to Botany Bay?’ Tench began, looking not at her but out to sea and the rest of the fleet marooned in the calm. ‘I mean, have you considered how many more men there will be than women?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘There will be three to every woman,’ he went on, frowning as if deeply concerned by this. ‘I suspect it may prove difficult for you women.’

  Mary realized with some shock that he was alluding to the likelihood of rape. ‘Won’t you Marines look after us?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ he said seriously. ‘But even with the best will in the world we won’t be able to be everywhere, all of the time.’

  Mary shuddered. She knew from Will that many of the men were very desperate characters, but then so were many of the women. Theft of food and belongings was the main thing she’d thought about, but now Tench had made her aware that stealing wasn’t going to be the only problem.

  ‘You’d do well to consider getting wed,’ he said.

  For one brief second she thought it was a proposal, and her heart leaped.

  ‘Wed?’ she repeated.

  ‘To one of the prisoners, of course,’ he said quickly. ‘Your baby will need a father.’

  Mary knew she was blushing and she hoped he didn’t know why. ‘I hardly know any of them,’ she said indignantly.<
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  Tench looked over his shoulder, checking to see who was watching them. ‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘But think about what I’ve said, will you?’

  He walked away before Mary could say anything more.

  Mary did think hard about what Tench had said. The more she thought about it, the more sense his words made. Men who had been locked away from women for so long were likely to be dangerous, and so were some of the women too.

  It was Tench she wanted, she felt she would love him forever and no other man could make her feel that way. But she was a realist; he might like her, maybe even have some romantic feelings for her, but it would take more time than she’d got to make him love her enough to step over the line and take a convict woman. Besides, he was due to go back to England after three years, and she’d still have another four years of her sentence to complete.

  There was only one convict she’d seen that she could admire, and that was Will Bryant. He was strong and capable, and he could read and write, he had a real trade in fishing, and he shared her love of boats and the sea. He was also handsome, and he was a natural leader.

  The more she thought about Will, the more certain she became that he would be the ideal husband. Of course he wasn’t going to see her as much of a catch, she’d have a child which wasn’t his for a start. Nor was she that pretty. But there had to be some way to make him see she’d be an asset to him.

  All through the eight weeks to Rio, Mary thought of little else but how she was going to persuade Will to become her husband. Because of her condition, Surgeon White gave her permission to stay on deck all day in good weather and have a larger share of rations. This meant she saw Will almost every day, and she mended his nets, gutted the fish for him, often gave him some of her extra food, and flattered him.

  Almost daily she found some new facet in Will. His bragging could be wearing, he thought he could do almost anything better than another man, but he was strong, practical and knowledgeable. Yet he had a gentle side too. He always inquired how she was feeling, and once he’d asked if he could put his hand on her belly to feel the baby kick, and looked astounded when he felt it. He was protective of those weaker than himself, and he was a jolly man, rarely down in the mouth about anything.