Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  Nevertheless the formidable Mrs Fry and her Ladies’ Committee were not easily deceived and they soon earned the approbation of all but the hardest and most recalcitrant female convicts. Though the world of the two classes of women was divided by a chasm too wide to leap, or even for one to imagine the life of the other, these committee women were not from the authorities, nor were they easily intimidated by them. Furthermore, they laboured trenchantly and with goodwill on behalf of the female convicts. They showed themselves as women who cared greatly for their unfortunate sisters. By notable contrast, with the exception of many of the surgeon-superintendents who often took the utmost care of their convicts (Joshua Smiles and some few others being the exception), the male administrators were, for the most part, totally indifferent to their welfare. In fact, most went to great pains to indicate that they cared not a rat’s tail for the wellbeing of their charges but, instead, regarded every female prisoner as a whore transported to keep the men, both convict and free, sated.

  Mary’s misshapen hands did not allow for needlework but to her great delight, along with cloth and thread, the resourceful Quaker ladies had supplied a small library. While there were no novels, plays or other improper books, the single box contained, as well as religious works, travel, biographies and history books and poetry. This last gave Mary a new-found pleasure, and was to bring her considerable joy for the remainder of her life.

  Most of the convicts on board adapted to the order and routine the Ladies’ Committee established at the commencement of the voyage, and those within Mary’s mess, though all of them prostitutes, encouraged by her, soon proved eager to take up needlework. They were frequently rewarded for their diligence by Mary with readings while they worked, but this was not true of Ann Gower’s mess.

  These were the women who were branded by the authorities within the surgeon-superintendent’s report at the conclusion of each voyage with words such as, ‘notoriously bad’, ‘disorderly’, ‘profligate wretches’, ‘quarrelsome’, and for those with a flair for invective and a good, well-inked goose feather quill, ‘the basest and most abominable wretch of a woman’, or ‘scheming, blasphemous vixen and prostitute’ - this last description being appended to Mary’s name by Tiberias Potbottom on the very first evening of her coming on board. When the ship arrived in Hobart, this single entry in the surgeon’s report resulted in her being incarcerated in the Female Factory instead of being assigned as a servant to a settler. In truth, with the exception of theft and blasphemy, fighting and the urgent couplings which took place at night, most of the offences committed on board were minor breaches of discipline such as insolence and refusal to obey orders, howling and singing a hymn or prayer to the tune of a well-known bawdy and sentimental song.

  In the week before the departure of the vessel the relatives of those convicts on board began to arrive to farewell their wives and daughters. Mary, having no family of her own, witnessed the piteous sight of parents parting from their daughters with no likelihood of ever seeing them in this life again. The deck of the Destiny II was washed with the tears of country folk who had seen their dear daughters leave home to find work as servants or some form of livelihood in the city only to end up, unbeknown to them, selling their bodies on the streets of London, Dublin, Glasgow or Liverpool or resorting to petty crime in order to stay alive. These were good, honest people, who, for the most part, worked at backbreaking labour to earn barely enough to put bread and broth upon the table. They brought what they could as gifts, though frequently this was no more than the tears they shed and the love they bestowed for the last time upon their unfortunate and wretched offspring.

  The Destiny II, flying the red and white pennant, ‘the whip’ which denoted a convict ship, sailed with the evening tide on the 14th of June amid the dreadful cries of distress from both those on board and the ones they’d left behind forever. The wind was from the nor’west, the temperature 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the sailing down channel was steady and most pleasant until about midnight when the winds changed to the west. This brought choppy seas and frequent squalls and the weather billowed into gales and huge seas by the time they entered the Bay of Biscay.

  By midnight, when the prisoners had long since been confined below decks, almost the entire complement of convicts became sick to the point of frequent vomiting and nausea. They commenced to howling and blaspheming until no strength existed for these bitter emotions, whereupon they lay in their own vomit and moaned, willing themselves to die in the insufferable atmosphere of the water-logged prison.

  The Destiny II was a ‘wet’ ship, that is to say, when the huge waves washed over the decks the water poured down into the prison quarters so that not a single flock mattress, pillow or blanket or anything contained within the female prison, including the convicts themselves, remained dry. The swinging stoves were hung in the prison to help dry the prison quarters but to no effect. The constant downpour of water rushing in from the deck above caused the contents of their stomachs to somewhat dilute, and with the hatches tightly closed, by the time dawn’s light came the stench and the mess from the swill at their feet was beyond any possible description.

  Sea sickness has no medication other than a tranquil sea and the weather remained inclement for the following week and then continued foul with intermittent calm of no more than, at most, a day, until they reached Tenerife, twenty days after departing from Woolwich.

  At almost the moment they made the harbour at Santa Cruz at seven of the clock on a Sunday morning with the church bells summoning worshippers to early mass, the wind died and the sun blazed up to chase away all signs of the threatening cumulus cloud gathered above the high conical peaks above the town. While there was no thought that the convicts might be allowed to go ashore, they rested for several days while the ship took on new provisions. The women were allowed fresh fruit bought from the various boats which pulled to the side of the vessel and all were kept occupied at cleaning-out below decks and drying their bedding, clothes and personal effects.

  As each cloudless day passed, the women became more hysterical at the prospect of leaving. On the third day, as they up-anchored in preparation to depart, the convicts went berserk and were confined to below decks with the hatches of the prison quarters securely locked. This was for fear that they might riot at the expectation of atrocious weather such as they’d endured during their first month at sea.

  Only Tiberias Potbottom and Joshua Smiles seemed content to be on their way again. God had blessed the voyage with gale force winds and stormy seas, though not sufficient of either to cause harm to the Destiny II, and this was seen by both men as a blessing breathed upon their journey to the other side of the world.

  Soon the routine on board ship assumed a semblance of normalcy. Most of the women were allocated jobs on board which helped somewhat to alleviate the long empty hours. Some of these positions carried the promise of a small reward while others were reward enough by helping to pass the hours between six o’clock muster when they rose and the time, roughly twelve hours later at dusk, when they were confined below decks. Most, being experienced in domestic service, adjusted easily enough to the routines on board and took readily to the added pleasures of sewing and needlework. They were not averse to working as servants in the kitchens and hospital or in other menial tasks of cleaning and labouring. Mary asked that she might teach those who wished to learn to read and write. She was the only one among the female convicts with sufficient learning to impart this knowledge to others and the Ladies’ Committee had encouraged the formation of a school. But this was refused as a duty, in Joshua Smiles’ name, by Potbottom and so Mary was obliged to run her school during the afternoon. Potbottom saw to it that she was on constant duty cleaning out the prison each morning, dry scrubbing the deck with holystone and sand and washing down and refilling the water closets, these being the most menial and hated tasks on board ship.

  Moreover, at every opportunity, Potbottom would try to humiliate Mary and at each bloody pusover he
would make cruel jokes about her hands or comment on the scar upon her face, or make her linger longer before the matron with her skirts held above her waist and her flannel undergarment removed. On two occasions, when he had caught her in utterance of bad language, he had caused Mary to be placed in a scold’s bridle, a strap worn tightly over the mouth, tied at the back of the neck and which made it quite impossible to speak, nor, for the space of one week, was she allowed to read from a book, a punishment she found far more onerous than the silence the bridle enforced.

  The increasing tropical heat did not help the disposition of the convicts or that of the officials and crew who, increasingly, tormented them. Each passing day the breeze seemed to slacken a little more and the sun to grow hotter as it beat down on deck from a sky too high and blue for anything in their previous comprehension.

  The women wakened each morning in a lather of perspiration with no breeze at all coming in from the hatches and the portholes, which were thrown wide open. Even the scuttles were opened, the sea being calm enough to allow it, but this too was to no avail. Nor was there a breath of air from the supposed ‘ventilation shafts’ in which the ship’s officers had shown no trust. These wind sails and shafts were designed to blow cool air below decks, but such was their scorn for this newfangled idea that the crew purposely neglected to adjust them according to instructions.

  Soon it made no difference whether they had it right or wrong, for the ship had entered the equatorial doldrums in the Atlantic Narrows and the sails, whatever their purpose, lay limp and useless. Joshua Smiles watched the topgallant with increasing fear, for even this tiny sail trapped not the slightest breath of wind and the red and white ‘whip’ hung flat against the topmast.

  With the sea totally calm and the heat each day climbing, a hellish invasion overtook the vessel. Hordes of vermin, once snug within the cracks and crannies in the woodwork and the bilges - cockroaches, bedbugs, lice and fleas and whole colonies of rats - emerged from the crevices and dark holes to attack the human inhabitants of the Destiny II.

  The crew and officers were not spared in this, for if the vermin knew not convict from free man and spared not the one in preference to another, nor did the incredible stench, which pervaded the prison and the apartments of crew and officers alike.

  For Mary the real hell of the outward journey to Van Diemen’s Land was about to begin at the hands of Tiberias Potbottom. The assistant to the surgeon-superintendent, whether at the behest of his master or by his own decision, came to conclude that the becalming of the vessel and the invasion of the pestilence from the cracks and the bilges, which had in itself a biblical connotation as if one of the plagues upon Egypt, had come about because of the blasphemy of the whores on board. That God, in His righteous wrath, had withdrawn His breath, demanding that those who mocked Him should be punished.

  With the extraordinary heat it was decided that the convict women might bring their bedding and sleep on deck, occupying the poop and quarter decks which could be safely enough guarded from the crew. Though the nights were exceedingly hot and and the air still, this was a most pleasant experience compared with the furnace of the prison quarters below decks, and the prisoners received this concession to their comfort with great joy.

  ‘All may sleep on deck except the whores!’ Potbottom had declared. ‘These be the orders o’ the surgeon-superintendent!’

  There was a howl of consternation from Ann Gower’s and Mary’s groups.

  ‘All what’s declared whores on ship’s manifest will take their beddin’ down below after evening muster,’ Tiberias Potbottom continued. Then he grinned. ‘This be a little taste o’ hell, a sample o’ what’s comin’ to them what mocks the Lord Jesus Christ or takes His name in vain! Gawd is not mocked!’ he repeated.

  ‘We ain’t done nothin’!’ Mary shouted. ‘Why pick on us, then? We ain’t taken nobody’s name in vain!’ She turned to her group and then to Ann Gower’s group. ‘ ’As we, ladies?’

  ‘Oh, be that so?’ Potbottom exclaimed. ‘And I says different and surgeon thinks different and. . .’ he pointed upwards to the limp sails, ‘evidence says different!’

  Mary showed her indignation, bringing her hand to her hip and throwing her shoulder forward. ‘It ain’t our fault there be no bleedin’ wind!’

  ‘Ah! That be a matter of opinion, Mary Habacus, Gawd’s opinion, surgeon’s opinion and me own opinion, we all be against your single opinion!’

  ‘Not single, mine too!’ Ann Gower shouted. ‘It ain’t fair! We done no ‘arm, we done nuffink wrong! It weren’t Gawd what made them sails still, it be ‘em doll drums!’

  ‘That’s right, it be the doldrums!’ Mary shouted in support. ‘They be perfectly natural, a phenomenon what sometimes happens near the equator!’

  ‘Oh it be clever Miss Jack ‘n a Box again! Phenomenon is it?’ Potbottom paused. ‘And Gawd! Is He not a phenomenon? Is He not the creator o’ the heavens and the earth? The rain and the glorious clouds what is His billowin’ breath!’ Tiberias Potbottom stopped again and looked about him at the women assembled for muster. He finally fixed his eyes on Ann Gower and then again on Mary, and began to speak, this time most rapidly and in a high-pitched voice. ‘Without His breath to drive the clouds there be no rain, without the rain there be starvation upon the face o’ the earth! Gawd’s breath be the breath of all life itself and when Gawd takes His breath from us it be a sign o’ His anger!’ He pointed upwards to the limp sails above his head and spoke more slowly. ‘Gawd has taken His breath away from us! Doldrums just be another name for Gawd’s anger!’ Then Potbottom brought his hand down again and pointed to the group of convict women gathered around Mary. ‘And we all knows the reason for it, don’t we!’

  ‘That be a whole ‘eap o’ bilge water!’ Mary shouted angrily.

  ‘Ha! And that be blasphemin’! Callin’ Gawd’s breath bilge now, is we?’ Potbottom shouted triumphantly. ‘You’ll all go below right now, all the whores and blasphemers! We’ll put the lid o’ hell on the Jack ‘n a Box and all her consorts, in the name o’ Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour!’

  Ann Gower’s group and Mary’s group were sentenced to be locked in the prison below decks for three days on half rations, but with the full daily allowance of two pints of water, this ration not halved, for it would likely have caused them to perish.

  The heat below decks was so intense and the vermin so prolific that the women were soon forced to remove their clothes and after several hours below they could think of nothing but the need for water. Many were so overcome that they fainted away, these faintings frequently terminating in fits. At night the portholes as well as the hatches were closed and by morning the following day many of them were delirious, wandering about unable to recall their own names.

  By midday, when the sun was at its zenith, the heat upon the blazing deck would cause the pitch between the deckboards to melt. This molten hell would drop onto them in the prison below where it would bubble upon their flesh, the fiery pitch sticking long enough to arm or leg or back or head to burn savagely through the skin or scalp and deep into the flesh, so that they were permanently scarred from its effect.

  On the afternoon of the second day Ann Gower, maddened by the circumstances below decks, attacked Mary, accusing her of causing the calamitous situation they found themselves in. Mary had been sitting alone in a corner against the bulkhead, clasping her legs together with her head resting on her knees when Ann Gower approached and stood over her.

  ‘It were you, not us! It were you the sod wanted!’ Ann began. ‘All along it be you givin’ ‘im lip! In the wagon ‘an all, when we first come. Then on an’ on an’ on, always makin’ it ‘ard for us. You what thinks you is better than a whore. Ya think ‘cause ya can read that ya be clever, that ya knows everyfink! Well let me tell ya, all ya knows is ‘ow to make trouble for all of us wif that fuckin’ gob o’ yers! Now Potbottom’s gettin’ ‘is own back and it’s us what’s sufferin’! It were you, Mary Abacus, what done this to us and I
reckons you ‘as to pay!’ Ann Gower turned and faced the others. ‘What do ya say, girls, the bitch ‘as gotta pay for our misery!’ She indicated the prison around them. ‘For this!’

  As Ann Gower spoke Mary’s hands were under her skirt, for she was one of the very few who had not removed her clothes, which hung soaking from her body. Suspended from a string about her waist was a small bundle of cloth concealed in her flannel undergarment which contained her brass talons. Mary’s twisted fingers worked frantically at the knot, but it was too tightly bound to open without some persistent plucking and pulling. Long before it had yielded Ann Gower’s right hand swept down and knocked Mary’s mob cap from her head. She gripped a fistful of hair in her left hand and pulled Mary squealing to her feet. Balling her hand into a fist, she struck Mary a violent blow which broke her nose.

  At the sight of the blood spurting from Mary’s nose the other women seemed to go berserk. Howling, they rushed at her, tearing and pulling and pushing her to the deck. They kicked and jumped on Mary and drove their fists into her face and body, raking her with their nails in a furious frenzy of fighting.

  So intense were the screams and caterwauling and hysteria that the hatches were hurriedly opened and three guards and Potbottom rushed below. At the sight of Potbottom the women turned like a pack of howling wolves and made towards him. The two prison guards were barely able to retreat and hold them off sufficiently long for Potbottom to beat a hasty retreat, his tiny bow legs propelling him as fast as they could carry him back on to the deck.

  More guards arrived together with the prison matron and two of her assistants, and it took fully ten minutes before any order was restored and they were able to gain control of the hysterical women.

  When the matron came upon Mary she lay unconscious, one of her purpled and twisted hands clasped tightly into a ball and resting on her bloodstained breast. She was carried to the hospital where she was washed and her wounds dressed, though every attempt to open her left hand failed. Her fingers seemed to have clamped shut with the shock of the beating she had taken, and had the appearance of the claws of a great bird of prey pulled tightly inwards as though in death.