‘It’s Rosie, sir, Rosie O’Donoghue.’
‘And I’m Bart,’ he said. ‘Bart Stubbins, a midshipman.’
There was a shout behind him and he turned. The bosun stood at the bottom of the ladder. ‘Mr Stubbins, if you will. The First Officer requires your presence.’
‘Coming, bosun,’ he replied and reluctantly let go Rosie’s hand. ‘I’ll see you again, Rosie,’ he whispered.
‘Yes, sir,’ she laughed. ‘I’m sure you will. I can’t go anywhere.’
The young midshipman smiled and followed the bosun up the ladder, pausing at the top to view the convict bay. Hannah, Rosie and Porter stood together watching him and he raised a hand in farewell before disappearing out on deck.
An amused Hannah hugged her young friend, chuckling into Rosie’s short cropped dark hair. ‘It seems you’ve won a heart, young Rosie,’ she observed. ‘But,’ she added, serious now, ‘For God sake, Rosie, keep a dress on during the day.’
‘It’s too hot and besides he didn’t seem to mind,’ Rosie giggled.
Hannah thought she’d never seen Rosie so happy. Ah, young love. God bless them.
The orlop grew quieter and happier after the Big Tess incident, Hannah noted, a more contented atmosphere, less tension. Sure, there was still the odd squabble here and there, some hair-pulling, the odd push and shove but these differences of opinion were quickly ended if the blue coats were nearby. Nobody wanted to be flogged like Big Tess. They’d been forced to go on deck too and witness the whipping. The sailors ripped apart her dress and tugged it down to her waist exposing her strong upper body and tied the London thief and prostitute to the foremast, huge naked breasts flopping either side of the mast. They’d slammed her legs apart and began the twenty lashes ordered by the captain. Hannah remembered with horror how the cat-of-nine tails had dug deep into the pale flesh extracting flakes of skin and flecks of blood which sprayed the deck, yet Tess barely whimpered. Afterwards, they’d thrown salt water over her drooping body and dragged her along the deck to the tiny brig in the fo’c’s’le. A few days later, she’d been brought back into the hold, chained to her bunk, withdrawn and sullen. No one would go near her, not even her former cronies. She was ‘sent to Coventry’ and Hannah suspected she was a broken woman. Deep inside, she felt some pity for the tyrant. She was and probably would always be a despicable person but no human being — particularly a woman — should be treated like Tess had been, tied near naked to the mast and whipped like a common cur with all the men watching.
Hannah readied clothes for the washing up top. It would be their last chance before the ship berthed in Rio. Convict access to the deck while they were in the harbor was at the Captain’s discretion. She hoped he might let them view the town from the deck. She was so looking forward to seeing houses, people, civilization of sorts even if it was only from the ship. She shot an amused glance at Rosie, sitting, preening herself in a shard of mirror. There was color in her cheeks and sparkles in her eyes. Thank you, young Bart, she thought.
RIO DE JANEIRO
Late June 1810
The Canada, aided by an opportune south-east trade wind, sailed westward, hugging the coast on the way to Rio. At dawn the masthead sighted the high features of Cabo Firio and Captain Ward swiftly arrived on deck. He’d been there all morning now, standing behind the First Officer and helmsman and watching with interest the colorful high mountain features of Brazil as they glided by. The weather was fine, the seas favorable — only a moderate chop — and almost the entire crew crowded on the waist deck and the fo’c’sle jabbering with delight at the sight of land and laughing with anticipation at the thought of setting foot in the city of Rio De Janeiro. At dusk, they anchored off the entrance to the harbor, the Captain preferring to cross the bar in daylight.
At the break of day, the Canada hoisted a topsail, entered the bay and anchored a half mile abreast of the south wharf. The boatswain’s mate, John Dixon, hurried to prepare the ship’s cutter as the Captain and his First Officer came on deck. They were immaculately dressed in their finest marine dress, the Captain resplendent in gold braided epaulettes, dark breeches and navy blue coat, his best bicorn under his arm.
‘Mr. Hendry,’ Captain Ward called the Second Officer.
‘Captain?’
‘You are in charge of the Canada. No one leaves the ship. The convicts remain below. I will return with his Excellency, the Portuguese Governor and his aides. Please make sure the ship is clean and tidy and the crew on duty are aware they need to look and act like British sailors. We represent our country. I’m sure you understand the importance of the occasion.’
‘Aye, sir, I certainly do.’
‘Also, I have instructed the steward about refreshments and seating for our guests. You might like to check his progress as time goes by.’
‘Yes, sir, I shall.’
‘Carry on.’ Captain Ward moved to the rail and shinned with ease down the rope net to the waiting cutter. The First Officer followed, thinking that the Captain was still physically active and belying his mature years. ‘You may proceed, ‘swain,’ instructed the Captain when they were seated. John Dixon motioned to the crew who bent to the task. Soon, they developed a rhythm and the long oars flashed in perfect synchronization as they propelled the cutter to the distant wharf where a growing crowd of people, including local dignitaries, awaited their arrival.
Second Officer John Hendry followed the cutter’s progress with the glass until it berthed at the wharf then swung around to spur the duty crew. ‘Come on, lads, you heard the Captain. Let’s get the Canada shipshape, that is, if you want to get on shore sometime.’
‘Do we ever?’ Leading hand Paddy Nelson waved a tar brush. ‘I can smell rum and crumpet from here.’ The crew broke into hysterics at Paddy’s crudity but spontaneously went to work with renewed energy.
Hendry smiled but his mind was on the steward, Albert Sawyer. He was a slack bastard. He moved quickly around the foremast with purpose, knowing that if Sawyer stuffed up, it was he, John Hendry, who’d cop the blast from the Captain. The very thought made him nervous.
‘I want to go up top.’ Rosie flicked a tendril of hair over one ear.
‘Do you, your Highness?’ Porter raised herself into to a sitting position. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? I’ll go see the Captain immediately. He’ll let you up, I’m sure and he’ll have the wine ready to serve, too.’ Porter rolled her eyes in emphasis. ‘Get real, Rosie. You’ll have to wait your turn and so will young Bart.’
‘I think you’re jealous, Hannah P,’ Rosie implied, biting her bottom lip and not amused.
‘Now, girls, don’t start bickering,’ Hannah exclaimed. ‘We’re a team. Remember?’
Porter ignored her. ‘Pray,’ she glared at Rosie, ‘tell me why I’d be jealous of that young fellow? What? Of a young pimply-faced boy just out of school—’
‘Shut up, Porter, you didn’t say that the other day when you told everyone he was wonderful, which he is. Besides,’ Rosie said spitefully, ‘he’s not your type, Hannah P. He comes from a fine family in the north of England.’ She sniffed disdainfully. ‘He’s aristocracy, you know. He has to be careful who he mixes with.’
Porter’s temper erupted. ‘Why, you cheeky young sod, you’re getting too big for your breeches. After all I’ve done for you, too.’ She turned away to hide her tears and fled aft along the long passageway between the convict bunks.
Hannah turned to Rosie, eyes hard. She did not speak but held Rosie’s gaze and the young girl, disconcerted, lowered her head. Hannah resisted a strong urge to smack Rosie’s face. Instead, she reached across and took the girl’s smooth hand in hers. ‘Look at me, Rosie,’ she said softly and the youngster looked up, eyes moist, a nervous tic pulsing at the corner of her mouth. ‘Rosie, you’ve hurt Hannah P. You’ve been rude and uncaring. She saved you from Big Tess twice to my knowledge and she looked after you like her own daughter when you were sick. No . . . just listen. Remember how she cleaned up your vomit w
hen you were sick in your bunk and sat up with you when you couldn’t sleep, or has that escaped your memory too? Yes?’ She waited until Rosie nodded. ‘You’ve treated her badly. Now, you stop being a little prig, you ungrateful little wench. Hannah P doesn’t want Bart. She just admires him because of his manners, like we all do. She’s a grown woman. Wake up to yourself. Now go and find her and say sorry. Go on. Now, move.’
Rosie nodded and tears welled in her eyes. She jumped to her feet and embraced Hannah. ‘I’m sorry, oh, so sorry. I’ve been—’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Hannah disentangled herself. ‘Go tell Hannah P.’
She watched the young girl move swiftly down the passageway, dodging between the inactive older lags and stepping adroitly around the chamber pots and buckets that were lined up ready to go up top. She waited. In a few minutes, the two of them came back along the rows, arms around each other, heads together, both crying and laughing at the same time.
‘Hey,’ Rosie shouted, as they came near. ‘I told Hannah P that I’ll wash her hair when we get up top.’
Hannah smiled and nodded. ‘Well, girls, you had better get ready.’ She turned to point to the ladder being lowered into the orlop. ‘It’s our turn right now. The duty officer just shouted for the change. It’ll be our first sight of Rio.’ She motioned to her friends. ‘So hurry up.’
‘Hurrah for Rio.’ Rosie’s face beamed. ‘Come on,’ she urged Hannah P and put an arm around her waist. As the three women joined the others at the bottom of the ladder, Hannah couldn’t resist a smile. Whatever happened, the three of them were again a tight team and would stay that way for self-preservation..
‘And what did you think of the Portuguese lot?’ the Captain asked.
First Officer Gordon Robinson didn’t know how to answer. Should he tell the commander of the Canada that, in his view, his Excellency, the Governor of Brazil, was a boring buffoon? Instead, he took a more tactful approach. ‘They seemed friendly enough, sir.’
‘Friendly?’ The Captain retorted. ‘So they should be with the prices they’re charging. I had to pay an arm and a leg for the blue cheese I wanted. The fruit from the locals was cheap, though. We did get those limes as I ordered, Mr. Robinson?’
‘Yes, sir, about a dozen bags all told. They should last us for a few months.’
‘Good. That’ll hold the scurvy at bay. Cook found that out. God bless him.’ Captain Ward chuckled. ‘Did you see all those medals and ribbons on his Excellency’s uniform? By gad, he must have been in a few wars!’ He broke into a rare laugh which Robinson took the wise option of joining him. The Captain’s a different man since he’s been in Rio, he thought. ‘Sir, have you decided when we leave port?’
‘What’s the matter, Mr. Robinson? Getting sick of civilization?’
‘No, sir, but I’m a bit worried about some of the crew going ashore. That fellow Burton caused all that trouble in one of the taverns and we were lucky to get him back to the ship—’
‘You did a good job on that one, Robinson. Where’s Burton now?’
‘He’s in the brig, sir.’
The Captain looked out on the docks of Rio and sighed. ‘Humph. We’ll have to flog him, I guess.’
‘With respect, sir, he’s learnt his lesson but it’s a difficult job getting some of his like back on the ship. They’ve never had it so good with the cheap wine and the willing women too—’
Ward gave him a keen look. ‘I presume that you’ve never had one . . . a local woman, I mean?’
‘No, sir, I’m married and I swore I’d be faithful to my Lily and I will.’
Ward nodded. ‘It’ll be probably twelve months or so, I would think, before we get back to England but good luck, Gordon. I know what it’s like to abstain.’ The Captain leaned against the rail, a wry smile now on his face. ‘Tell me, what happened to young Bartholomew? Did the junior officers initiate him into the fleshpots of Rio as they said they would?’
‘I believe they tried and would you believe, sir, he refused to go into the brothels and they gave him up in the finish, sir. He can be very obstinate when he wants to be. I do hear though that he’s become very close to a young convict girl, one Rosie O’Donoghue.’
‘O‘Donoghue? That would be the young Irish girl. Ah, yes, I remember her from that incident with Tess. She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she? Humph, very interesting. Well . . .’ The Captain rubbed his chin and suddenly stood erect, formal now. ‘Mr. Robinson.’ The Captain paused to better gain his First Officer’s attention. ‘To answer your question, we will sail with the tide on Friday. That gives us three whole days to ensure we have all our provisions safely on board and all the crew back on the ship by Wednesday evening without fail when leave will cease for all hands. We will wait for no one and one last thing, Mr. Robinson, check that the crew and the convicts have suitable attire to see them through the winter. It’s going to get extremely cold.
‘Very good, sir.’
THE CANADA APPROACHING
CAPE TOWN
July 1810
The Canada nudged southwards towards the great expanse of the Southern Ocean under near full sail and a favorable, increasing in strength, northwest wind. Before retiring, as was his habit, the Captain noted in his log on the evening of the 14th July the advantage of the wind’s direction and the passing of the 35º latitude line. He also added the ship’s position as being 250 miles south-south west of the Dutch controlled township of Cape Town. Under the heading Convicts, he noted the illness of one Abaigail Treadmore, her subsequent death, and burial at sea. Diagnosis by the acting surgeon, Third Officer, Sydney Fife, as galloping consumption, he wrote. Otherwise, he added, the convicts were in good spirits and healthy.
Down below in the orlop, the convicts huddled together in their four-to-a-bunk groups and whispered in hushed tones as the ship began to roll, rise and dip into the heavy seas. The fore and aft hatches had been battened down since yesterday morn, portholes barred and only the tiny scuttle vents, a target of fearsome glances as they dribbled tiny spurts of sea water. The stagnant air within the claustrophobic tomb filled with continuous moaning, violent dry-reaching, heavy green slime vomiting and screams of despair and terror from the weakened, the sick and the frail. The hold saturated with the foul stink of sickly puke, the gases emanating through the vents of the near-full slop buckets and the penetrating, all-encompassing tang of one hundred and twenty one unwashed and stinking human bodies.
Hannah gulped and held her breath as she supported Rosie while the youngster purged her stomach into a bucket. Porter lay on her bunk, eyes closed, seemingly indifferent to the violent movement of the ship and the state of its occupants. Occasionally, she raised her head from her wooden pillow sufficiently to make some wisecrack about their situation. Her latest ‘Well, it beats Maidstone and Captain Cornelious, I think’ made even sick Rosie give a wry smile.
On the poop deck of the Canada, abaft of the helmsman and the duty officer, Sydney Fife, the Captain and his two senior officers, Gordon Robinson and John Hendry stood in a tight, bedraggled group, the sou’westers wrapping and lashing around their cold bodies. Behind them, green seas gathered in tumult in preparation for the next assault. Driven by the screaming wind, the abundance loomed over the stern before sweeping the deck to knee height and thrusting the bowsprit and the ship’s bow violently down under. The deck crew clung to lifelines or any fixed object, holding on with white-knuckle grips while watching, waiting and praying for the bowsprit and bow to emerge and shed water to both sides before returning to a God-blessed equilibrium.
First Officer Robinson leant closer to the ear of the Captain. His head covering flapping over his mouth, he shoved it aside as he shouted above the wind that shrieked through the hard-driven topsails. ‘Sir, it is just a thought, if you don’t mind. Should we change to courses only and furl the topsails?’
Captain Ward shook his head. ‘No. Not yet. I know what you’re saying, mister. It’ll steady the ship and reduce the movement but it’ll also slow the s
hip down. I wager this lot will blow itself out. Wait and see. I give it twelve hours.’ He raised the flap of his hood better to eye his First Officer. ‘It always does with a northwester. Short and sweet, that’s what they are,’ he added with a smile.
‘Sir, I understand that. It’s just the convicts that mainly concerns me, sweating it out below getting thrown from side to side—’
‘Ah, yes, our guests the convicts. Well, I’m well aware of their discomfort, Mr. Robinson, but I’m afraid they’ll just have to put up with it for the time being.’ Ward shot a glance at the imperturbable face of John Hendry. ‘You do know, Gordon,’ He said, turning again to eyeball Robinson and using his rare Christian name, ‘that we’ll be getting stronger stuff than this moderate blow when we get below 40º so they’d better get used to it. Isn’t that so, Mr. Hendry?’
Robinson was about to listen for Hendry’s response when the next deluge of seas loomed aft. He paused to hang on to the life line until the turbulent water had done its trek of the deck and waited until the bowsprit grew visible in the churn before he turned to the Captain. ‘Sir, with respect, you may have forgotten that I’ve been on this voyage before . . . on the Speke in ‘08. We had storms too and mountainous seas near those French islands. My only concern is for the convicts particularly, as you say, sir, there’s more bad weather to come.’
Captain Ward nodded. ‘I hear you, Mr. Robinson. I was aware you’d been here before as a Third Officer. Let’s think about what we can do for the convicts.’ He paused, rubbing at his sopping face, ‘when this blow is over then we’ll have a round table about that matter. How can we give those poor wretches more air with the hatches closed? Well, that’s the problem. Give it some thought, Mr. Robinson, and maybe you’ll come up with the solution.’ Ward gave a wry smile. ‘In the meantime, let’s ride out this rather insignificant blow with the topsails up.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ conceded the two senior officers in unison and held on grimly to survive the next attack of the sea.
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