‘Pay heed!’ bellowed a seaman, standing on a large cask to get the passengers’ attention. ‘I am First Mate of the Rebecca Jane, bound for New Zealand. We expect the voyage to take three months, less if the wind favours us, and in the interests of shortening our running time we will not land at Cape Town. The Master will be aboard shortly and we will head into the sound in an hour. Move your trunks over to the afterhatch for the lumpers to take down, but take out what you need now because we’ll not be opening the hold for another month. Take the rest of your belongings below. The Second Mates will show you where to go. Cabin passengers will be boarding shortly. All non-passengers ashore.’
Tamar turned to George Kellow and his wife, mouthed ‘thank you’, smiled at his wink, then dragged her trunk to the afterhatch, already surrounded by a mountain of scruffy-looking luggage. As she moved towards the main hatch there was a mad crush as people fought to get down the steep ladder first for the best berths. When it was Tamar’s turn to descend into the creaking belly of the ship, she could barely make out her surroundings. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw there were no best berths.
A man’s voice called, ‘Single women over here!’
Tamar moved towards what she assumed was the front of the ship, where a young crewman held yet another list. He looked up and asked, ‘Name?’
‘Miss Tamar Deane,’ she replied.
‘Papers?’ Tamar handed over her certificate of passage and confirmation of medical examination and the crewman ticked her name off.
‘Through this door and you’ll see the single women’s quarters.’ He pushed the door open with his foot and pointed. ‘See? Bunks on your left, put your gear on one, you’ll be taking your meals at the mid-ship tables back the way you’ve come. Matron’ll have a word when everyone’s settled.’
Tamar stepped into the cramped and stale-smelling cabin, closed the door behind her and looked about for a bunk. Remembering what Brigid had said in her letter about the incessant noise from married couples and families in the middle of the ship, she chose the berth furthest from the door. The bunks were built one above the other, extending from the hull into the centre of the cabin. She dropped her gear onto the bottom one, a very narrow space she could see she would have to get into feet first. There was a small shelf at the back but nowhere else to put her things, with only a small curtain at the front for privacy.
Wearily she pulled her thin blanket and a sheet out of her travel bag and spread them on the sad-looking mattress. She bent down to examine it closely, looking for wildlife and other unpleasant signs of past use, but could not see properly in the gloom. The four lanterns in the cabin did little to penetrate the murk.
‘Don’t think there’s anythin’ livin’ in ’em, an’ they smell like they’ve ’ad a good wash, but yer never can tell!’
Tamar jumped at the voice, hitting her head on the top bunk. Hearing a giggle, she turned and saw she had walked past three young women reclining in the bunks nearest the door.
‘You gave me a fright!’ she gasped.
‘Sorry, luv,’ said the speaker, a girl with heavy blonde hair tied back with a green ribbon. ‘Thought you’d seen us on yer way in.’
‘No, I didn’t, I’m sorry. It’s quite dark in here.’
‘It is,’ said the blonde girl. ‘An’ cramped. Could get stuffy after three months. I’m not lookin’ forward ter it. I’m Polly Jakes.’ Climbing out of her bunk, she indicated her companions. ‘An’ this ’ere’s Sally Thomas and Jane Shilton.’
Tamar introduced herself. Polly, Sally and Jane were emigrating to New Zealand in search of a better life and, hopefully, husbands. Polly was petite, pretty and cheerful and pleasingly round. Sally was slender and dark while Jane was solid but fit-looking with wavy black hair. Tamar judged them to be in their early twenties and immediately envied their obvious comradeship.
‘Phew,’ said Jane, fanning her face with her hat. ‘There’s no air in ’ere already. Let’s go up on deck, shall we, see what’s happenin’? You comin’, Tamar?’
Absurdly pleased to be invited, Tamar hung her bag on a nail at the back of her bunk and followed them back through the swarming, din-filled married quarters and up the ladder to the deck. Most of the equipment and provisions strewn about just half an hour before had gone. As they moved towards the bulwark closest to the dock they heard a commotion below; looking down, they saw a group of well-dressed people standing around an enormous pile of luggage, some of which was being hoisted onto the shoulders of various crew members. Cabin passengers, thought Tamar.
As a crewman lifted a particularly heavy-looking case, one of the women in the group shrieked, ‘Careful with that, you clumsy fool! My best Wedgwood china is in that case. If I find any of it broken when we reach New Zealand, I will hold you personally responsible!’
The crewman looked at the woman, middle-aged and overdressed in a bustled gown bedecked with braid, fringes and piping, topped off with an ornate lace cap, its long ribbons flying in the strong breeze. ‘Of course, Ma’am,’ he replied. ‘I know ’ow yer valuables need ter be treated, Ma’am.’
He plodded up the steep gangway, balancing the crate expertly on his right shoulder. As he neared Tamar and her new friends, he said under his breath, ‘They should be shoved up yer arse, Ma’am,’ and winked at the girls.
Polly laughed out loud and Tamar held her hand over her face to conceal her smile, which she hastily wiped off as the party began to imperiously ascend. There appeared to be several families with children, as well as two or three single men. One of these was white-haired and distinguished-looking, while the other two were quite young, perhaps in their late twenties or early thirties. Each doffed their hat politely as they passed.
From somewhere above a bell rang, evidently a signal the ship was about to cast off as crewmen began to untie ropes holding the ship to the dock, while more trunks and provisions were raced up the gangway. Emigrants began to line the bulwarks for what, for most, would be the last view of their homeland; many wept openly and children cried loudly at their parents’ distress. The Rebecca Jane shuddered as the tugboat towing her into Plymouth Sound moved away from the dock.
Tamar felt an aching sadness and bit her lip to stop herself crying again. She would miss Cornwall’s harsh beauty, its wild coastlines and mists and rains, but most of all she would miss her family. But she knew she would never see them again in this life, so did it matter where she was? In a perverse way this made her feel better. She raised her head and let the sharp wind blow into her face and lift her hair.
‘You all right, luv?’ asked Sally.
‘Yes, I’m fine. It’s just that New Zealand’s such a long way away.’
‘I know, but think of them opportunities. A new country, new jobs. New men! They do say there’s three fer every unattached girl!’ She uttered the last comment with such enthusiasm Tamar had to smile.
They stayed on deck until the dock and Plymouth itself had receded into the distance. The wind picked up as the Rebecca Jane moved into the sound; her sails were unfurled as the tugboat detached itself, turned around in a lazy half-circle and began heading back into port.
CHAPTER TWO
The Rebecca Jane was seven days into her voyage. Mild seasickness had set in amongst her less robust passengers almost as soon as she reached open water, but Tamar herself was hardly afflicted; she quickly found her sea legs and as long as she went up on deck for fresh air, she felt fine.
She was sharing the single women’s quarters with another eighteen young women, plus the ship’s matron, Mrs Mary Joseph, a quiet, ineffectual-looking woman in her mid-forties. Her husband, a skilled carpenter, was accommodated in the men’s quarters. Like most on board, they were emigrating to New Zealand to start a new life. Myrna McTaggart’s four girls were also in the single women’s quarters, but Myrna was not. Tamar had come to know the girls, Vivienne, Bronwyn, Jessica and Letitia, quite well over the past week. It was difficult not to, in such intimate and close quarters.
Tamar had remarked that, for sisters, they did not look at all alike, although they were all very pretty. The girls burst out laughing, then informed Tamar they were not sisters and Myrna was not their mother; she was their employer. Myrna ran a training school for domestic servants and had decided to move her business out to New Zealand where the demand for skilled domestics was high. The girls were her first trainees in the new colony. Myrna, they said, was a shrewd businesswoman and could afford to pay for a private cabin.
The diminutive but relentlessly cheerful Scotswoman, however, had so far elected to spend a considerable amount of her time in the single women’s quarters, to Mrs Joseph’s unvoiced but obvious disapproval. She privately thought Myrna vulgar with her flashy clothes and coarse language. Myrna seemed to get on with almost everyone, but confessed that at times she found the company of most of the cabin passengers dull and their attitude towards her standoffish. She thought the girls were much more fun.
Tamar agreed. She had barely had time to be lonely since the Rebecca Jane sailed from Plymouth. Although there were long hours when there was little to do, there was always someone to talk to. Most of the girls were young and eager to reach New Zealand, and never tired of talking about their plans and what, or who, they might find there. Tamar liked most of her cabin mates, although she was wary of a handful of fairly rough girls. Their ringleader, a big, aggressive English girl called Eliza, was rude, foul-mouthed and somewhat intimidating.
It had taken several days for the girls’ daily routine to establish itself. Mrs Joseph had lectured them vigorously on where they were permitted to go on the ship. There was strictly no entering the single men’s or crew’s quarters under any circumstances, no access to the poop deck which was for the sole use of cabin passengers, and they were to avoid going through the family quarters at night; it would certainly not do for a married man to see a young woman in her night attire, or vice versa. There was a closet privy in the single women’s quarters and this, for modesty’s sake, was to be used rather than the other sanitary facilities. Bathing would be carried out regularly every second day, using buckets of sea water, and laundry was to be done on Fridays.
The girls had worked out a roster detailing who would collect and prepare the rations, which were prescribed by the ship’s surgeon, Dr Adams, and handed out under supervision. The food was adequate some of the time but, in Tamar’s opinion, frequently left a lot to be desired. On one occasion they received spoiled meat that had to be thrown overboard, but emigrants who had come from poverty more dire than Tamar’s thought the food was lovely. Every few days a supply of preserved meat, with rice or potatoes, pickled cabbage or dried peas, mustard and flour was served out to those on mess duty. Women nursing babies were allocated a quantity of beer and small children received fresh milk from the ship’s cows. Like the other steerage passengers, the single women cooked their meals in the community galley and ate at the large central tables in the middle of the ship. On occasion, however, if the family quarters were particularly noisome, they dined in their own compartment. Cabin passengers had their markedly superior meals cooked for them and served by stewards in their own area.
The family quarters, where most of the emigrants were housed, stank; its confined space was cramped, gloomy, airless and oppressive, particularly when the weather was too inclement to venture on deck. Dr Adams insisted the floors were thoroughly swabbed out with sea water and sprinkled with chloride of lime every second day, and bedding aired on deck at every opportunity, but the smell of unwashed people and human waste persisted. An official instruction stated that chamber pots were not to be used in sleeping and eating areas and the privies used instead, but many were too embarrassed, preferring to squat over their pots behind their bunk curtains. Whenever Tamar went through the family quarters to go up on deck for air, she held her nose to stop herself retching.
The atmosphere in the single women’s quarters was not particularly refreshing either, but under the guidance of Mrs Joseph most of the girls made an effort to keep themselves and their area clean. The privy was sluiced with sea water and chloride of lime regularly, and the few small portholes above the bunks opened briefly whenever the weather permitted.
Initially, a handful of girls resented having to bathe as regularly as Mrs Joseph demanded and their body odour was beginning to disturb their roommates. Tall, big-boned, sour-faced Eliza, who came, ironically, from Bath, took particular offence at Mrs Joseph’s efforts to get her to wash.
‘I only ’ad a wash once a fortnight at ’ome, an’ I aren’t changing that fer the likes of you, yer snotty old cow,’ she snapped one day, standing threateningly over the much smaller Mrs Joseph. ‘Sod off an’ kip somewhere else if yer don’t like it!’
The blood drained from Mrs Joseph’s face and her already thin lips compressed into a white line but, humiliated and intimidated, she had not responded.
The girls continued to make an effort not to breathe too deeply around Eliza for the next few days, but the denouement came mercifully soon. Sweeping into the single women’s quarters one evening after dinner, Myrna stopped dead in the middle of the cabin, fanned her face theatrically and exclaimed loudly, ‘God Almighty, what is that dreadful pong? There’s no’ a dead fish in here somewhere, is there?’
She prowled around the cabin, sniffing suspiciously at each of the girls, much to their mortification. When she came to Eliza lying in her bunk, she stopped. ‘Och, it’s you, lassie! Ye stink!’
Eliza uncoiled herself from her bed and stood up. ‘Yer wot?’ the big girl said menacingly.
‘I said, ye stink!’ repeated Myrna even more loudly, craning her neck to look into the much taller woman’s face. ‘Ye pong. Did ye mam no’ tell ye to wash when ye have your courses? Ye smell like a heap o’ dead whelks rotting on the shore!’
Everyone froze in horrified anticipation, waiting to see what Eliza would do. Tamar glanced at Mrs Joseph sitting motionless at her small work desk, mouth open and face crimson with embarrassment.
Eliza raised her hand.
‘Dinnae even think about it, lassie,’ said Myrna. Quick as lightning she grabbed Eliza’s right ear with her long fingernails and pinched and twisted hard. Eliza yelped and bent her head down to Myrna’s level in an attempt to ease the pressure.
‘Let go, yer bitch,’ she wailed.
‘When ye agree to keep yeself clean,’ replied Myrna calmly. ‘Ye’ve no’ a hope in hell o’ getting yeself a laddie smelling the way ye do, not to mention the fact that ye’re making life for the lassies here verra unpleasant. Well, are we agreed?’
When Eliza said nothing, Myrna gave her ear an extra, particularly brutal, wrench.
‘Ow!’ shrieked Eliza. ‘Yes! Yes, I’ll wash!’
Myrna let go, stepped back and lowered her voice. ‘Who raised ye, lassie?’
Eliza subsided onto her bunk, her eyes watering and her hand held protectively over the side of her head.
‘Who taught ye about being a woman?’ repeated Myrna.
‘No one,’ replied Eliza sulkily. ‘Me mam died when I were little.’
‘Thought as much,’ remarked Myrna. She took Eliza’s hand and pulled her gently but firmly to her feet. ‘Ladies,’ she announced to the stunned onlookers, ‘we will be in ma cabin for an hour.’ And, pushing Eliza in front of her, she stepped out through the cabin door.
‘Bloody ’ell!’ exclaimed Polly after the door swung shut. ‘Never thought I’d see that ’appen!’
Everyone started talking at once, ignoring Mrs Joseph’s pleas for decorum and a care for language.
‘I feel sorry fer ’er, really,’ said Jane. ‘Not knowin’ what ter do an’ all that. Can’t be nice.’
‘Don’t worry, Myrna will sort her out. She’s very good at that sort of thing,’ replied Letitia. She looked accusingly at the remaining handful of girls who, along with Eliza, had been refusing to wash regularly. ‘At least we’ll be able to breathe properly in here now, won’t we?’ she said pointedly. The smel
ly ones nodded rapidly.
Eliza came back an hour and a half later with red and swollen eyes, but smelling infinitely better. In fact, Tamar thought she detected a hint of lavender water as the big girl walked past. The girls raised their eyebrows at each other but nothing was said.
The smell below decks was always worse when the weather was rough. The first real bout of bad weather and serious mal de mer arrived just over a week out from Plymouth. Until then, as the ship sailed south past the coasts of France and Spain towards the Canary Islands, the weather had been fair and unusually calm.
Those passengers who had already experienced mild seasickness as soon as the Rebecca Jane had reached open water, but had recovered and gained their sea legs, were horrified to find that as the ocean swell grew, their seasickness returned tenfold. On the first day of really rough weather, the conversation below decks became steadily more muted and by mid-afternoon, many had retired to their bunks, feeling extremely ill. As their nausea increased, tempers frayed and established routines began to falter. In the cabins, most managed to confine themselves to vomiting into bowls and buckets, but below decks, there was no room for such elegant manoeuvres and the stricken simply threw up in their bunks or onto the floor.
In the single women’s quarters, only Tamar and one of the other girls were not seasick. Nor was Myrna, who claimed she had never been ill a day in her life. Mrs Joseph took to her bunk as soon as the Rebecca Jane started to roll, her face grey and miserable-looking under the wilting lace of her house cap.
The first vicious storm struck the ship suddenly at three o’clock in the afternoon of the following day, forcing the Captain to forbid anyone venturing on deck. The seas rapidly became mountainous and huge waves crashed over the ship, sea water pouring through the hatches and drenching below decks. As much equipment as possible had to be lashed down and almost everyone was confined to their bunks, the rolling and pitching of the ship making it unsafe for the few who were not seasick to wander about. Many of the children and more than a few adults cried out in fear as the ship creaked, groaned and heaved around them, lamps swinging wildly in the gloom as mighty waves crashed against the hull.
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