by Sara Fraser
‘Can’t I goo wi’ you, mistress?’ she asked.
Sarah sighed heavily. ‘You may come with me, if you want to, Molly, but I have nothing now . . . Everything I owned in the world was in there.’ She nodded at the smouldering heaps of fire-charred rubble and timbers. ‘I’m going to Fort Cumberland to see if Jethro Stanton will take me in. I don’t doubt that if you so wished, you could find a husband from amongst the soldiers there.’
The girl stared with surprise. ‘But how about your Jack Tar . . . the captin? I thought you were meeting with him these past months.’
Sarah smiled tiredly and shook her head. She was still wearing her white poke-bonnet and carriage dress, but so dirtied were they from the smoke and ash that their one-time elegance had gone, and they appeared to be a beggar-woman’s rags.
‘I was meeting the captain for very different reasons from those you assume, Molly . . . The man I love is a soldier, a corporal in the militia. I pray God that he will feel sufficiently tender towards me to take me under his protection . . . Will you come with me?’
Her friend appeared to consider the question. Then she laughed harshly.
‘No, Miss Sarah, I think not . . . I’ve no wish to go wi’ any soldier, at least not for a while . . . I’ve had my fill o’ soldiers. No, Molly Bawn will go back to Spice Island, where she belongs. I was stupid to think that I’d ever be able to leave it.’
There was both bitterness and sadness underlying her words. Abruptly she kissed Sarah’s cheek. ‘God go with you, Sarah Jenkins,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve bin a good friend to me . . . The best I ever had. Molly Bawn won’t ever forget you, and that’s no lie.’
She gathered the scorched folds of her bedraggled finery about her and without another word ran down the street in the direction of the King James Gate. Sarah watched her go, and felt the tears sting her eyes. The ruins of The Golden Venture shifted and sparks rose as a timber finally smouldered through and collapsed. Sarah sighed once more.
‘Good-bye, Shim,’ she murmured, and turned to make her way to Fort Cumberland.
On Southsea beach, Sarah went to the sea’s edge and untying the ribbons of her bonnet she threw it far out into the tiny rippling waves . . . ‘Soldiers’ wives wear shawls, not fine bonnets,’ she thought.
She stooped and, cupping her hands, bathed her face and neck in the cold salt water, feeling its clean bite lave away the weariness of the long night’s vigil at the funeral pyre of Shimson Levi. Her thick chestnut hair tumbled down in long waves of rich rippling colour and suddenly all her cares disappeared and a feeling of light-headed gaiety overwhelmed her.
‘I’m free once more,’ she told herself exultantly. ‘I’m free of sharps and flats and crows and pigeons and priests . . . I’m free of profits and losses and nights of false smiles and falser promises . . . I’m free to do what I choose to do . . . I’m free!’
She looked down at her torn, smoke-blackened gown and grimaced ruefully. ‘Free I might be, but before God! I make a poor spectacle considering I’m on my way to ask a man to take me as his woman,’ she thought, and then laughed aloud. ‘Never fret, girl . . . It’s what’s beneath the clothes that men desire and I’ve no fears on that score.’
She continued her journey until she was only about five hundred yards from the fort, then settled herself behind one of the beach groynes and waited patiently for the day to pass, knowing that Jethro would be engaged with his duties until early evening. The day was gentle and the spot she lay in sheltered from the wind. Drowsiness crept upon her and, pillowing her head on her arms, Sarah slept.
*
Sarah felt a certain timidity as Jethro Stanton, wearing his full regimentals and white-plumed shako, came through the Land Gate, and walked to where she waited some yards beyond the outer ditch.
When he neared her, he exclaimed with surprise, ‘Sarah! What’s happened?’
‘There was a fire,’ she told him. ‘I wasn’t hurt, but The Golden Venture is destroyed.’
‘So that’s what it was,’ he murmured, and then told her in explanation, ‘I was up on the west gun-platform last night and saw the glow . . . I wondered what was burning so fierce.’
They walked side by side in silence towards the beach groynes. The woman screwed up her courage and asked pointblank,
‘Jethro, do you have any feeling for me? . . . Of love perhaps?’
In Jethro’s mind conflicting emotions battled with one another. He had already sensed why Sarah had come to him and knew what she hoped for. But he was reluctant to make her a barrack woman. While he struggled to come to a decision, she waited, uncertainty tormenting her. At last Jethro stopped and turned Sarah to face him.
‘Have you lost everything, Sarah?’ he asked gently.
She nodded tearfully and the whole story of the night’s terrible happenings poured from her lips. He listened without interruption until she reached the end of her story and stood gazing at him with fearful, wide-eyed anxiety. He watched a single teardrop as it trickled down her smooth cheek and mentally shrugged. ‘Here you go again, you damned fool!’ he scoffed at himself silently. ‘Will you never be able to resist a woman’s weeping?’
Aloud he asked, ‘Would you consider being a soldier’s woman, Sarah?’
Relief coursed through her and she could only say, ‘Oh yes, with all my heart. Do you really mean it, Jethro? Can I come to you?’
He smiled and nodded.
‘But do you really want me?’ she worried him for reassurance. ‘Do you love me? . . . Or is it only pity you feel?’
Jethro could not in all truthfulness have told her the doubts he was feeling at that moment. But he kept the smile on his lips and said with deep sincerity,
‘I care for you very much, Sarah . . . But have you stopped to think what being a soldier’s woman means? I’m volunteering for the Quota. There’s a party of recruiters due any day now. It means that you’ll have to follow the drum across the Peninsula, and risk great suffering . . . even death.’
She shook her head dismissively, happiness glowing from her handsome face. ‘I care naught for those dangers, Jethro. All that I want is for us to be together. I’ll be a faithful and a loving wife to you, I swear I will.’
‘There still remains a problem.’ His face became grave. ‘I’ll have to get permission to marry you from my officer; and I’m not sure that he’ll give it. The battalion already has more than its official number of women on the strength.’
‘What if we were already married?’ she asked.
‘Then I don’t think he would refuse your entrance to the company.’
‘Then tell him we are long since married.’ Sarah was determined that nothing should stop her achieving what she wanted. ‘The certificate of proof will present no difficulty. I know a parson across on Spice Island who marries sailors and their girls for a crown and a noggin of rum. If they’ve not got a crown to spend then he does it just for the rum. He’ll give us a certificate stating we’ve been married for years.’
‘But that wouldn’t be legal, and you wouldn’t really be married to me,’ Jethro said doubtfully.
She laughed happily. ‘Who gives a damn. I do not, that’s for sure . . . You know as well as I do, Jethro, that the bond that joins a man to a maid has nothing to do with banns being called and words mumbled in a church . . . Another thing, how many of the women with the army are really married to their men by due legal process? Not one in ten, I’ll wager.’
Jethro accepted the inevitable with good grace. ‘Very well, Sarah . . . Here, take this.’ He handed her some coins. ‘There’s enough here for your needs and to spare. Go to that parson and get the necessary. I’ll apply to my company commander tomorrow morning and I’ll meet you here at noontime . . .’
She nodded contentedly. He drew her close and lifted her chin with his fingers so that their eyes met. He looked searchingly at her and said, ‘Listen carefully to me. Life in the barracks is a hard thing for a woman. You’ll hear naught but rough talk and oaths; and
see naught but brutality and wickedness . . . There’s not much kindness there, and a deal of kicks and harsh treatment . . . Are you really sure that this is what you want?’
Sarah wrapped her arms about his neck and smiled into his concerned features. She kissed him hungrily on the mouth, then whispered in his ear, ‘We’ll have the loving in our bed of nights, won’t we, my handsome? That will do much to sweeten life for both of us, will it not? . . . don’t concern yourself about me. So long as I shall be with you, then I will be happy.’
Jethro’s senses filled with her fragrance as he tasted the warm moistness of her lips. He felt the sensual promise of her firm breasts and belly and the full roundness of her hips and thighs pressing hard into his body, and could only admit that there was much truth in what she said of their lives being sweetened.
For once, everything went smoothly and without hindrance. The next morning Jethro made an application to Captain Joseph Ward. The captain heard him out and since he felt that the corporal was a fine soldier, granted him permission to have his suddenly-appeared wife placed on the ration strength. They met at the noontime as arranged, and later that afternoon Sarah Jenkins walked through the Land Gate and up to the casemate that was to be her first home with Jethro.
*
Martha Danks and Josie Collins were sat at opposite sides of the firegrate on low three-legged stools. They shared a companionable silence and also the short stubby clay pipe of black-shag tobacco, which they passed back and forth between them. Both women suckled rag-swaddled babies at their breasts and both leaned over at intervals to spit into the wood fire.
Brought up in the unremitting slavery of Bromsgrove nail-makers’ cottage workshops, all they had known from infancy had been the thudding hammers and red-hot forges. And all the never-ending toil with these articles had given them were sweat, hunger and grinding poverty. The casemate at Fort Cumberland, now deserted but for them, was in many ways the most pleasant and peaceful room they had ever lived in.
When Sarah Jenkins nervously pushed open the door to stand framed in the entrance, the two young women turned hostile eyes to this intruder upon their quarters. Sarah had used the money Jethro had given her wisely. She was clad in a decent dark-brown gown and shawl, and her glossy hair was tucked neatly under a snowy-white mobcap. Her hands were empty, for she possessed nothing more than what she stood in. For a while she remained in the doorway, silently gazing at her new home, with the tremors of doubt engendered by the hostile glares of the women rapidly increasing. The general layout and furnishings of the room were of a similar style to Colewort Garden barracks, but, not knowing what to expect, Sarah was surprised at its spartan neatness and order.
Martha Danks, clouds of smoke wreathing her thin, smallpox-pitted face, took a final puff of the rank-smelling tobacco and handed the pipe to her friend. Then asked in unfriendly tones,
‘What con us do for thee, my wench? The way you’m astarin’, teks it you wants to buy summat . . . Or ’as you come to save our souls?’
Sarah looked tensely at the slovenly pair. Both alike in their open-bodiced checked gingham dresses, with the strands of greasy, lank hair escaping from under their dirt-stained mobcaps.
‘No, I’ve not come to buy, or to save souls,’ she replied hesitantly. ‘I’ve come to stay here for a time.’
Josie Collins, a fatter edition of her friend stared questioningly.
‘’Oo be you wife to?’ she demanded to know.
‘To Corporal Stanton . . . Corporal Jethro Stanton,’ Sarah answered.
Both women received this news in silence. Digesting it and ruminating on its implications. Then Josie hissed in annoyance and moved the swaddled baby from her plump hanging breast to turn it around. The puny little chest swelled and the thin high squalls of outrage went on until she silenced them by pushing the big dark nipple of the fresh breast into the greedily sucking mouth. Her lips twisted and she swore loudly.
‘God rot yer, yer little barstard! You’ll bite the bleedin’ end off it afore you’ve done.’ She grinned in a kindly way at Sarah, displaying half-decayed teeth. ‘Come you in and shut the door then, my wench. It’s letting all the warm get out while it’s open.’ Reaching behind her, she pulled another stool into view and placed it in front of the fire. ‘Sit yoursen down and be comfortable . . . ’E’s a nice sort o’ cove, Jethro is. So I rackon his missus ’ull turn out to be the same.’
Sarah accepted the proffered kindness. She seated herself on the stool between the others and admired both their babies in turn.
Martha Danks held the pipe towards her. ‘’Ull you try a taste?’
Sarah nodded, sensing that she was being tested for pridefulness. She sucked hard at the pipe stem, causing the dottle to gurgle. The hot harsh smoke rasped her throat and threatened to choke her. She forced back the coughs until her eyes filled with tears, and tried to look as if the pipe was pleasurable.
Martha Danks watched the newcomer through narrowed eyes, then also grinned in a friendly way.
‘We’em a bit rough and ready, ’ere, my wench,’ she chuckled. ‘But we’em good at ’eart, me and Josie ’ere . . . I rackon you’ll do for us, you seems the right sort anyway . . . Don’t worry about settlin’ in. We’ll keep an eye for you and show you the ropes. Wun’t we, Jose?’
Her friend nodded grinning. ‘Ahr, that we ’ull.’
Sarah experienced a sudden feeling of relief and warmed to the women. ‘I’m sure you will, and thank you for it,’ she answered, and smiled at them with a strange feeling of belonging . . .
Chapter Thirty-One
The epidemic of gaol fever burnt itself out as suddenly as it had begun. Fresh cases of the disease became fewer daily and then ceased entirely. Both prisoners and guards breathed easily again, and now spared thought for the dead. There were still many of the dead who remained unburied and their bodies were rotting in the Orlop decks of the Fortune and Ceres, creating further hazards to health.
Matthew Purpost sent word to the fort asking that a mass grave should be dug in the shingle on the curving spit of land. Jethro Stanton was detailed as second-in-command of the guard for the party of convicts and prisoners-of-war who were to carry out the surgeon’s request.
The work began at dawn. Nathan Caldicott and Henri Chanteur were amongst the pick-swinging, shovelling men doing it. A trench three yards wide and twenty yards long was to be sunk. The foot-deep layer of shingle was easily cleared, as was the thin layer of sand directly beneath it. Then the picks’ steel points hit the hard-packed rocks and gravel and the mauling toil began. Slowly the trench deepened and the sea seeped through to fill the holes created as each shovel of material was taken out. The water rose to the men’s ankles, then to their knees and crept up towards their thighs. Nathan Caldicott’s face was clammy white and his bald head shone with sweat. He coughed constantly, his chest bubbling painfully with inner congestion. Henri Chanteur kept glancing at his friend as he laboured by his side. Finally he asked,
‘Nathan, are you ill?’
The American stopped working and leant upon his long-handled shovel, his breath rasping in his lungs.
‘I must confess to feeling a mite shaky today, Henry my boy.’ He tried to smile but another bout of coughing tore through his throat.
The noise caught the attention of one of the guards. The man’s nerves were ragged. He had, like all the others lived with the fear of the fever for weeks.
‘Hey, you there? Are you badly?’ he shouted.
Nathan opened his mouth to answer but could not, for yet another fit of coughing shook his bony shoulders.
Henri spoke out. ‘He has a chill, nothing more.’
The guard’s face plainly showed his suspicious fear. ‘Sar’nt!’ he shouted.
A heavy-shouldered, halbert-carrying sergeant came over to him. ‘What is it?’
The guard pointed his musket barrel at Nathan. ‘That cove’s bin took badly,’ he reported nervously.
The sergeant, normally a placid, easy-going m
an, was also nervous, and his nervousness was increased by the other convicts in the water trench who, muttering and afraid, had moved as far away as they could from Nathan and Henri. By this time, Jethro had also come up.
‘What’s the trouble, Sar’nt?’ he questioned.
‘I think that that baldy cove ’as took the fever. He’ll ha’ to goo out to the spit,’ the senior N.C.O. told him, and shouted to Nathan, ‘Come on out o’ theer, cully, and goo to the spit . . . The Fortune’s boat ’ull fetch you tonight.’ Nathan stopped coughing in time to restrain Henri’s angry protests. ‘No Henry!’ he panted raspingly. ‘The man’s right, it could be the fever I got.’
The American waded to the side and hauled himself from the trench. Then, with water pouring from his ragged trousers, he made his way, coughing and stumbling along the spit of land towards the end that jutted farthest into the harbour entrance.
The sergeant then ordered Henri, ‘’Ere, pull up your jacket and let me see your chest.’
The Frenchman obeyed and the guards, keeping their distance, squinted to see if he bore the tell-tale rash on his smooth skin. When they were satisfied that he did not, they shouted to all the prisoners to resume their work. Some of the convicts showed a marked reluctance to go by the Frenchman, but their objections were overcome by Jethro, who aimed his musket at one of the most vociferous grumblers and said quietly,
‘If you don’t obey the order in one second flat, then this ball is going to find a billet in your loud mouth, cully.’
The labour recommenced and Henri turned so that each time he straightened his back he could see the lonely figure of Nathan Caldicott sitting hunched over his knees at the end of the landspit. The grey sky and sea, and cold biting wind added to the sadness of the pathetic spectacle. Jethro found to his own surprise that he felt concern for the Frenchman who was so obviously distressed by what had happened to his friend.
‘But what in God’s name, can I do about it?’ he thought helplessly.