Convict Girl

by Chrissie Michaels

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  The Diary of Mary Beckwith Port Jackson, New South Wales, 1801–1803

  Historical Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Diary of Mary Beckwith

  Port Jackson, New South Wales, 1801–1803

  On board The Nile

  13 December 1801

  Tomorrow we shall be landing at Port Jackson. No more rolling and pitching. No rough seas knocking us and our stinking pails head over heels. No sleeping crushed shoulder-to-shoulder until our bones are so stiff they could freely snap.

  I can only be grateful that when we were first hoisted on the deck of this convict ship I managed to rescue my writing pouch from the folds of my sad scarlet cloak. Lawdy, they ripped that tattered and threadbare rag from me so swift, tossing it overboard, all I could do was watch it balloon on the water and become a bleeding stain of red.

  Until Dadda’s troubles I had been learning my writing. And doing so well! I had gone from making a simple X for my name, to forming letters and words. Down here in the hold there are but a few girls who can make the same boast. Meg can. She was once a servant girl in a well-to-do family and has helped me much with my learning these suffering months we have been at sea.

  After we land, what is to happen? All I know is that Mumma and I shall be stranded in New South Wales for life. Seeing as instead of the gallows, Justice Lawrence and King George saw fit to send us across the high seas. We are so far away from Dadda; so far away from everything we have ever known to bring us comfort. I feel dazed with misery and cannot bring myself to call His Majesty’s sentence merciful.

  14 December 1801

  I have been sorely waiting for the hatch with its strong iron hinges to be raised. If only to escape Mumma and Bridget’s bickering! They have not spoken a civil word to each other since we left Spithead and I have long since given up being their go between.

  Bridget’s babble set off Mumma this time. ‘The first thing I plan to do is find me a sweetheart, dear-o,’ she said, glaring over my shoulder at Mumma and adding, ‘a rebel one at that.’

  ‘Bold as a brass candlestick, that one!’ Mumma huffed to no one in particular, as if Bridget were not listening. ‘I got nothing against her kind, truly I haven’t. But what can you expect from rebels who do not wish to be part of our United Kingdom?’

  Mumma had been going on about the Irish Fear ever since we sailed. The rebels were those fighting against our King George and nation for a free Ireland, in spite of the Act of Union this January past. Mumma thought Bridget and her ‘kind’ should be proud to have their red cross added to our flag.

  With her back to Mumma, Bridget gave me a long suffering look, then mimicked: ‘Tell Bridget this— Tell Bridget that—’

  I rolled my eyes at her to stop. Above deck, a sailor shouted. I heard ropes dragged, and treading feet, the thumps and thuds of cabins being emptied and cargo transferred. Something scraped down the side of the ship. There was a splash. Must be the lowering of a boat.

  Morning has long turned into afternoon. We remain locked down. Seems no one is in any hurry to haul us ashore. The air has become hot and heavy, the hold as fired up as a blacksmith’s forge. Bridget has been hitting the air with a white-knuckled fist.

  ‘Stop that infernal scribbling and join us!’ Mumma scolded at me. Which means put away my writing stub and paper scrap and, along with the others, cuss and rattle my empty pot hard against the planks.

  15 December 1801

  Mercy at last! The ship’s master sent down pails of fresh water and clean garments for us to wear. We drank our fill. After, we washed away the layer of salt encrusted on our skin. I put on a simple shift, thin as paper, adding a plain cloth bonnet to my hair, which has grown back after being shorn into a dandelion clock. There! Almost clean as a new pin.

  Up on deck it took a few blinks before my eyes fixed to the glare of the morning. The harbour was busy. Our three convict ships were anchored alongside trading boats, large and small.

  Meg was the first to voice her feelings. ‘Why it looks civilised enough!’ She swept her hand across the scattering of timber cottages with their kitchen gardens, the paling fences that reached down to the cove, the turning millwheel, and the few grander buildings on the hillsides made from light-coloured stone.

  ‘Do not forget this is a prison,’ muttered Bridget, looking at the soldier’s barracks. She was right. We could never overlook what this place was.

  Poor witless Sal turned the colour of sour milk and started to wail. When she put a hand out to Mumma to steady herself, Mumma gave her a salvo with her sharp tongue. ‘Silly dolt, pull yourself together! Stop frightening everyone.’ Poor Sal kept on shaking her head as if arguing something, then spread out her thin hands. I reached over and pressed her fingers tight, whispering a little to calm her.

  One of the sailors threw out a rope to a small boat. Our ship’s master rushed forward to greet a man in a smart uniform. Braided gold tassels draped and danced about his shoulders.

  ‘That’d be the Governor, dear-o,’ whispered Bridget, frowning hard as he made a swift inspection of us.

  He looked well pleased. We heard him say, ‘All are fit for immediate labour.’

  When a gent with greying hair and charm in his tread singled out Mumma, I caught a telltale glint in her eye. Lawdy! I knew Mumma only too well. She was not about to give back one of her well-known scowls. No! She was about to put on her hoity toity Lady act. Sure enough her cheek dimpled with the pleasure of his attention and her face turned a pleasant pink, showing him she was of worthy character. But I knew what she was thinking all right. Soft hands. Clean fingernails. Smart of dress. Being with the governor made this one a powerful man. I could tell she was seeing a possibility if ever there was one.

  If Mumma had not put on those same hoity toity ways with Henry Haynes, we would not have ended up in New South Wales in the first place. How could I ever forget that misfortune? So long ago. Back in June 1800. Late in the evening, we had gone to the Strand, the very heart of London, where plenty of men and women were afoot, moving like shadows in the gloomy mist. Laughter railed from the taverns. A barrow boy pushed his load towards the tap-tap of canes and gave a lively shout: ‘Horse chestnuts! Unfreeze your belly and warm your bones! Ha’penny a handful!’ I could still remember breathing in that mouthwatering aroma of roasted nut.

  Mumma and I had lingered close to a higgledy-piggledy pocket of shops that kept their doors open until midnight. A jumble of signboards hustled for space on their outer walls: Laine’s lavender seller, Silk and Sons—Tailors, Nemas the chandler, Pearson the soap-maker. Our affair concerned one shop in particular—Ball’s Linen Drapers.

  Before venturing inside, Mumma had pulled up the hood of my cloak to shield my face. I felt the catch of her nail against my skin as she tucked away a wisp of dark curl that had fallen loose. ‘Once you leave, on no account be nabbed,’ she warned. ‘Remember, if you slip up you are on your own.’

  I did not plan to be caught. I had become a dab hand at thieving a handkerchief or a stretch of cloth. Old Ball had such milky eyes he could not see much of anything. Once I was clear of the shop he would never tell my commonplace scarlet cloak one from another.

  We stepped into the smells of damp cloth and dyes. The feeble wax-lighted lamps had turned the room a sour yellow. Standing behind the oak counter was a shopkeeper with flash, cat-like eyes, sly beads that prowled this way and that over Mumma’s slender neck and wrists. Roaming the same over me.

  ‘Where the devil is Thomas Ball?’ Mumma spluttered at this unwelcome face, before recovering her wits and speaking hoity toity, ‘If our money is not good e
nough, we shall be off elsewhere.’

  Henry Haynes, we learnt, was serving in Master Ball’s absence while he was away visiting his amiable sister. Haynes had swept into a crooked bow, saying, ‘How may I help?’

  Mumma bluffed him that she wished to make a purchase: ‘Calico, if you have a mind.’ Haynes mistook her softening. For did I not say she could act the Lady whenever she wished …

  The sound of the ship’s master voice cut through my thoughts, snapping me back to where I was standing, on the deck of the Nile here in New South Wales. ‘Beckwith’s a cut above some when she wants to be, Acting Judge-Advocate Atkins, Your Honour,’ he was saying about Mumma, ‘although a touch idle and strong-spirited at times.’

  Lawdy, the gent’s title was a mouthful! He must be filling in as the chief judge. I made a closer inspection of him while he in turn considered Mumma. If you ask me, his coppery nose and the high colour of his cheeks were the telltale signs of a drinker.

  ‘Let us see how she fares at keeping house,’ the Judge decided.

  ‘Step forward, Beckwith.’ Hearing the name, I too made a move. ‘Elder only!’ Mumma cautioned me with a swift look. Step back! Stay quiet! With a sinking feeling I did as she bade me.

  A tall officer with a lively, honest face stooped down to speak to Meg. She nodded back. ‘Then you shall do fine,’ he said.

  ‘Catchpole, assigned to Commissary Palmer as family cook and dairy servant. Step forward.’

  When I thought about it, I was not surprised these important people had the first pickings. And while the Judge might be in for a shock or two with Mumma, this one was right in choosing Meg above many. Her good and amiable heart always shone through.

  Some of the lesser officers took their turn at choosing servants. As these girls were lowered in the slung seat over the side into a bobbing longboat, I forced myself not to tremble. No one had chosen me. Nor Bridget. Poor Sal stood close to us, her head down. The wind turned blowier. We waited to be sent ashore.

  Eventually, clinging on like a barnacle, I was hoisted down to a boat. My eyes skipped fearfully over the cove. A flock of screaming white birds with yellow crests appeared in the sky like little flecks of snow in sunshine. They settled in a clump of tall trees under which a group of dark-skinned people were crouching. A thin spiral of smoke drifted from their fire into the air.

  Settled in beside me Bridget exclaimed, ‘Grandfeather Whelan—’ that was how her word for grandfather came out, all of a flutter, ‘Natives!’ She wondered aloud at their lean and knobbled shapes. Some were naked as newborns. A pair were dressed in cloaks of hide, another in raggedy town clothes.

  ‘Do you think they is friendly enough?’ I asked.

  ‘As friendly as you would be if taken over by another country’s least wanted and there is little you can do to stop them, dear-o,’ my rebel friend answered.

  At a flat point of the cove a lone figure caught our attention. A strange little bird of a girl. She was dressed heavily from head to toe in funeral clothing. The crepe ribbon tie of her bonnet had cut loose in the wind and flew behind like a pennant. She waved in our direction.

  I squinted at her. Could it be? Forgetting where I was, I leaned over the side and waved back. The Marine-in-charge jerked his bayonet at me and grumbled in a threatening voice. I sat still, but not for a single instant did my eyes leave the little blackbird I was convinced was Ann Spencer, my friend from Newgate Gaol who had been sent out six months before.

  Newgate had been a fearful place where pickpockets, food snatchers and cutpurses, all manner of felons ended up. From our ward Ann and I used to hear the tolling of the prison bell whenever a hanging was due. I would picture myself standing on the gallows outside those blackened gravestone walls. It made me run cold to imagine the excited crowd milling around, swigging gin and licking their lips over a gingerbread treat while they waited for me to launch into eternity with a Newgate drop of my very own. Without the friendship Ann and I had formed during our time together, I fear I would have quickly gone the way of Poor Sal.

  Stepping onto land, I forgot my sea legs and cast my eyes around for Ann’s welcoming face but she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, facing us stood a group of red-coated soldiers with long, bored faces, grubby breeches and dull boots. They were using their bayonets as pointing sticks. A crowd had gathered. Mostly they were farmers, all puffing on clay pipes and jostling closer to take their pickings. Everyone and everything was covered in brown dust.

  Bridget shivered. ‘No league of gentlemen to bid for us this time.’

  A ruffian with a face to frighten an owl seized Poor Sal by the wrist. She gave a wild look full of frightened surprise. A redcoat called over, ‘You there, Jamieson, see that one safely up Coal River. No more to go missing along the way, d’ya hear?’ With a rough grumble, Jamieson dragged away Poor Sal. What did the soldier mean, go missing?

  A voice skipped past my ears towards Bridget. I caught that warm turn of speaking they shared in common. The same redcoat barked across, ‘No Irish talk, d’ya hear? Move off!’ His voice was a little too loud, a little too accusing.

  The lad who had chosen Bridget was sharp-featured, with eyes the colour of moss. On hearing the redcoat’s words, his mouth puckered at the corner. One thing was plain, this Master Green-eyes did not have much regard for what he had to say.

  The soldier’s face burned back like an angry branding iron. He stormed over and pushed his nose close to Green-eyes. ‘When I say move off, you scarper, d’ya hear?’

  Master Green-eyes stood firm. Bridget ran a calming hand along his pale bare arm. I noticed his wrist bore a crude tattoo of a cross.

  A watchful Captain strode over and the mean-mouthed soldier stood to attention. ‘Do up your buttons, man! Report to Captain Piper. We are organising a search for three absconders.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Obediently, the redcoat ran off.

  The Captain turned his gaze upon Master Green-eyes. His manner was cool and distant. ‘You should try more heartily to endear yourself, Joe. It may serve you better. Tell me, how is Duriault faring?’

  The reply was blunt. ‘Working hard, Captain Kemp. Like the rest of us.’

  ‘When next I visit, I look forward to seeing how his vines have improved. Leave now and take your girl.’

  Gladly, the stand off was over. Master Green-eyes beckoned to Bridget. ‘You need not be afraid, my colleen bawn, you are among friends now.’ A faint smile crossed between them. Bridget uttered a swift farewell to me and I was left wondering if she had already found her rebel sweetheart.

  Our miserable group dwindled down to six. Those of us remaining were herded onto a small barge on a stream that emptied into the cove. As I was nudged in behind the oarsman, the thump-thump of nails into timber drew my attention towards a nearby boatyard. Carpenters were hard at work on a clinker. Soundly built too by the look of it.

  I felt a pining for the times I had helped Dadda make his boats watertight, working by his side, he not minding I was a daughter instead of a son. Those were happier days gone by, with us both tethering a freshly caulked boat to the strong iron hoop at the edge of the river bank. If I closed my eyes I could almost sniff the raw, ripe breath of the Thames.

  I recalled the day Mumma and I had been hauled outside Newgate Gaol to be transported, and all those other familiar smells I had not dragged in during the wretched months of our imprisonment. Leathery hides from the tannery. Hot, sticky, horse glue. Malt from the taverns like sweet smelling apples. All too fast the barge taking us to Spithead had cut through the brooding grey river waters, in our wake leaving Dadda’s abandoned boatyard, tumbling into disrepair. I had longed for a farewell sign of him but of course, my poor dadda had not been there.

  Now I was a world away, going on another river barge. As the waterman took up his oars, he caught my eye. ‘Yonder shipyard’s run by Underwood if you’re wondering. Set himself up as a boat builder here on Tank Stream once he was free. One day I hope to become as prosperous.’ He reached over and pat
ted the timber side of his barge, tender as a father over his newborn babe. ‘May as well make yourself comfortable for we have a long ride upstream.’ With a genuine smile of goodwill he set his thick arms in motion.

  A redcoat guard surveyed our situation then took little notice. The stream bloated into a wider brackish river, snaking inland through pockets of forest and low thick scrub. I sat by the hour staring at this New World floating by: land pitted with blackened tree stumps; wisps of smoke rising into the sky; gangs labouring on riverfront farms; huts stripped to a brown skeleton and abandoned. Small workboats passed, loaded with hooped casks and crates of vegetables. If there were any natives about I saw none. After a while every swish of the water, every slap of the oar made my eyelids flutter and close.

  A shout from the guard jolted me awake. I swiped away the flies clustering in the corner of my eye to see we had pulled into a landing place. The air was thick with sticky heat, and a bluish evening had set in. The waterman chuckled. ‘Bout time you came around.’ He gave me a cheery doss of his cap. ‘Good luck to you.’

  We were in a riverside village set amongst bushland and farms. The guard led us along a dusty road lined with huts and cottages. Folk working in their kitchen gardens nodded as we passed, or plain ignored us. Loud voices shrieked out from a tavern, the Freemasons’ Arms, and I caught the same fruity smell of the London inns. There were barracks and a parade ground where a handful of redcoats chatted to one another. Up on the hill in front of us the windows of a stately house glistened into life as the lamp wicks were lit. At the crossroad we took a turn. My long, weary journey all the way from London seemed to have come to an end here, at Quaker’s Row.

  Dust and flies drifted in the room with us, for that is all this new prison was, one long timber room with a fireplace at the end. Our soldier guard handed over a measly ration of salt meat and meal, sugar and flour, as well as a few pots for us to use. He let us know the government stores would provide our weekly victuals. We must attend personally to our every other need. There was a small plot of land for a kitchen garden. Until we were assigned we were to remain in the government’s employ. Then he left us alone.