by Rosa Jordan
It would not be easy. Dr. White was a harsh man, not even slightly gentle with the women who came to him in distress. Mary had first thought that he might be one of those who hated women and had gone to sea to escape them. But as she watched him—and she did watch him when she could—she saw that he was just as rough with the men. She judged him to be an unhappy person; an officer, yes, but like most on this ship, not wanting to be here.
Mary often stood sideways to the railing as if she were looking ahead in the direction the ship was going, but where she stood was across from the surgery. When Dr. White appeared in the doorway, she stole quick glances to decipher his moods and his needs. The question was how to approach him, this man supposedly here for healing, who used his tongue like a lash and handled his patients, convicts and crew alike, with no more sympathy than a farmer might have for cattle being hauled to slaughter.
The doctor’s mood varied little, remaining as sour on sunny days as in stormy weather. Fairly soon, Mary noticed that his feet gave him pain. When there was no one in the surgery he often sat down, unlaced his boots and rubbed his feet. Indeed, he frequently went about with laces dangling, so as to remove the boots more quickly when he had a moment to rest. It was the only weakness she saw in him.
It was when they lay in the doldrums, on the passage between the Canaries and Brazil, that Mary made her move. She entered the surgery toward the end of a busy day, when there was but one patient remaining. It was the boy, Pip, who had been fettered so cruelly back on the Dunkirk. When the convicts were brought on board the Charlotte, Captain Phillip had ordered all fetters removed. But that year on the Dunkirk, dragging the iron ball and chain, had given Pip an unnatural walk. With each step he took, now that the fetter was gone, one bone-thin leg jerked high of its own accord. But Mary saw, when she entered the surgery, that something else had brought him here. His skinny forearm oozed blood from a horrible gash.
Dr. White stared at the wound with a look of pure disgust. “Metal or wood?” he asked.
“Metal,” the lad replied in a voice that belied his agony.
The doctor began to clean the wound, not seeming to care that his roughness left Pip gasping with fresh pain. “No room for clumsiness on a ship.”
“’Twern’t clumsiness, Sir,” the boy shot back. “’Twas that lout Scrapper what swung a grappling hook at me when I wouldn’t give him me victuals.”
The doctor bound the gash shut, pushed Pip out of the room, and gave Mary a cursory glance. “You look fit enough.”
“I am fit, Sir. It’s not for doctoring I’ve come.”
White dropped into a chair and pulled his boot from first one aching foot then the other. “Out,” he growled. “I’ve no time for the likes of you.”
“You misunderstand, Doctor. I—”
Mary took a deep breath, went down on her knees, and lifted his foot into her lap. His eyes flew open but already her fingers were moving over the foot, gently at first, then firmly, as she felt where the pain must be. Her father’s foot had required massaging after the injury to his leg, but that was a task her mother had performed. Later, when her mother lay in sickbed, Mary had often rubbed her feet when she came home and found them aching with cold. This was the first time Mary had touched a man’s foot, but a foot, she figured, was a foot. What took the pain from one would likely take it from another.
Mary quickly massaged the first foot then moved to the other one, not knowing how long the doctor would remain still. As it turned out, not long. He may have allowed her three minutes, and himself as many groans, then, without warning, he kicked her roughly aside.
“Go on, get out,” he said, his voice strangely thick. “I’ll see there’s a measure of rum for you tonight.”
“If you please, Dr. White, I don’t want rum,” Mary said, rising to her feet.
He looked sceptical. “Not sex? Not rum? What then?”
“Work.”
His laugh was hard and humourless. “You must be mad to think I’d have a criminal about, and risk a scalpel in the ribs.”
“Not by my hand, Dr. White.” Mary touched her belly. “There’s none experienced in midwifery on the ship, and if bad comes to worse, I might be needing you.”
His cold grey eyes narrowed. “When did you conceive?”
“On the Dunkirk. Four months ago.”
He leaned over and began to lace up his boots. “So you’ll be popping about half-way. And puking from here to there.”
Mary looked down at a small bald spot in the middle of his bent-over head. “I swear not, Sir. I’ve worked in a surgery before. It’s the hold, and molesting by the crew that sickens me. Let me stay topside and keep this place clean. You’ll not regret it, I promise.”
“That’s all you want? To muck about this butchery?” He gave her a suspicious stare.
Mary gazed straight into his eyes and said, “That, and extra victuals now and then.”
“The Captain controls the rations,” White snapped. “Which means you’ll go hungry, like everyone else.”
Mary’s eyes remained on his, and her voice, when she spoke, was not pleading. “I’ve no fear of hunger for myself. But I’ve seen babes born to starving women. Them that survived never seemed right in the head. I could overcome the grief of a dead baby, but not of a dim-witted one.”
Dr. White looked more closely at her. “You’ve got hard good sense, uncommon in a woman.” He rose and turned his back on her. Then over his shoulder, flung the words she wanted to hear. “Work begins at daybreak.”
“And you’ll be wanting me to—”
White waved a hand at the blood-spattered mess around them. “Clean this pigsty.”
In the weeks that followed, Mary cleaned as she had been taught by the doctor back in Cornwall, scrubbing every inch of the room where Dr. White worked. She was careful to keep her distance, though, for White let her know, with rough, unexpected shoves, that she was to stay out of his way. Much of the cleaning she did when he stepped out, or after he was done at night, so that when he returned, the room was as clean as salt water and muscle could make it.
When Dr. White attended a patient Mary paid close attention. She soon learned what instruments or bandages he was likely to want, and placed them in his hand as soon as—but never before—he asked. Within a week he was pushing minor cases—those with shallow cuts or a back that had been lashed with the whip—toward her with instructions to clean the wound. If he felt sympathy for the sick and injured, he never let it show. He treated the human body as if it were no more to him than the table upon which it lay. But for all his harsh ways, White was a good doctor, and Mary would never forget what she learned there, working by his side.
Privately, she wondered what cause he had for bitterness, and why he had chosen to practice his art aboard a ship, as neither his work nor the sea seemed to give him pleasure. If he appreciated Mary’s help, he chose not to show that either—at least, not with smiles or kind words. Yet often, after he had gone out to dinner and left her cleaning up, when he returned to lock the surgery, he would hand her a bit of salt pork or some other morsel. That was their bargain. It was all Mary asked and all she needed from him.
Just before the fleet reached Río de Janeiro, an Irish convict, near death, was brought into the surgery by Sergeant Scott. The Irishman had been in irons for some months, and both legs were horribly infected. He was delirious with fever, but one word running through his unintelligible mumbling was clear enough: “Colleen. Colleen.”
Dr. White ignored the man’s babbling and turned on the hapless sergeant. “If it’s dead you wanted the man, Sergeant Scott, why didn’t you fling him over the side to start?”
Scott took a step back and protested, “’Tis the rule, Sir. ‘Fore ever we set sail, we catched him trying to creep into the women’s quarters. What with him bein’ a political prisoner and all—”
Mary set to work cleaning the rotted flesh where the too-tight irons had been fastened. After a moment the doctor pushed her aside and took on the task himself. “Bloody waste of time,” he muttered. “The bastard’s as good as dead.”
“If you’re planning to lay him topside,” ventured Mary, “I could bring a convict women to tend him.”
White stared at her for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “Do that.”
Mary all but fell into the hold, where she found Colleen lying listlessly in her hammock. During the first part of the voyage Colleen had spent every minute she could on deck, hoping for a glimpse of Johnny. But as weeks passed she had lost hope. Of late she lay in her hammock, not even bothering to scratch her fleabites; as if willing herself to death by immobility.
“Come, girl!” Mary jerked Colleen’s hand so hard that she almost tumbled from the hammock. “There’s an Irishman calling your name! It’s your Johnny, I’m almost sure!”
“No!” Colleen gasp. “How—”
“They’ve had him in irons.”
“Where?”
“In the surgery.”
As Colleen lunged for the hatch, Mary caught the hem of her ragged gown and held her. “Colleen, you should know; it’s bad.”
Colleen’s voice came out a whimper. “Oh God! What have they done to him?”
“It’s his legs, Colleen. The doctor says . . . but the irons are off; at least there’s that.”
Colleen began to weep. “The bastards! The rotten bloody bastards!”
“Stop that ranting!” Mary’s tone was as sharp as Dr. White’s. “Go you up on deck and wait there, quiet. The doctor’s wanting a woman to tend him. If you don’t act the fool, that woman might be you!”
Mary planted Colleen at the rail and started for the surgery, but hung back when she saw Captain Phillip in the doorway, and heard angry words directed at the doctor.
“We’re going to need every able-bodied man and then some, Sir. You tell me this one’s as good as dead, and I tell you I’ll not have one lost to a piddling irons infection it’s your job to cure!”
The captain strode away, wearing the worried frown that perpetually darkened his countenance. Mary waited a moment, then cautiously entered the surgery.
“Well?” White demanded. “Where is she?”
Mary gestured to the deck. “Do you wish to see her now?”
“Now,” the doctor mimicked sarcastically, “I wish to get this Irish arse out of here. Tell that woman, whoever she is, that she brings some healing to bear or she’ll feel the cat-o-nine tails herself.”
Mary motioned to Colleen, who crossed the deck in a flash and saw the man whose face she had looked for in vain all the long weeks they had been at sea. Her gasp was audible. Mary jabbed her sharply in the ribs and said in a rough voice, “Help me get him out on deck, and mind you, hold him so his legs don’t bear any weight!”
Dr. White did not offer to help. Few things repulsed him as much as injuries inflicted deliberately by humans upon humans. White stepped to the door and motioned to the next patient who, he fervently hoped, would be suffering from a less revolting, more curable ailment.
Mary and Colleen laid Johnny flat on the deck. His feverish eyes were open, but he did not seem to see them and his babbling, as before, was pure nonsense interlaced with Colleen’s name. Mary brought a basin of water and a rag from the surgery.
To Colleen she said, “Keep his face cool. A fever this high can addle the brain. I don’t know what else to do. I’ll ask Dr. White later, when he’s not so busy.”
A hand tugged at her sleeve. It was the boy, Pip, his arm not yet healed from the grappling iron gash. “Miss Mary,” he said, “I know somebody.”
“Not now, Pip! Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Pip appealed to Colleen. “There’s a convict in the hammock next to mine what’s a wonder with infections. He used to live in Africa and learned a-plenty from witch doctors. I seen him patch up lots on this trip that the doctor couldn’t do no good for.”
“Bring him!” cried Colleen.
Pip hesitated. “If he’s sober. But he’ll be wantin’ rum.”
“Bring him!” Colleen repeated with an authority which, Mary thought, would have sent any man, let alone a boy, off to do her bidding.
Pip soon returned with a hard-faced, bow-legged man with a mane of greasy grey hair.
“This here’s Matey,” Pip said.
Matey looked at Colleen with booze-bleared eyes. “Where’s the rum?”
Mary said, “This man has been in irons. Can you —?”
“Where’s the rum?” Matey interrupted.
“Tonight,” Colleen whispered. “I’ll bring it.”
Matey grinned meanly. “They catch you, you’ll get a flogging.”
“There’s my word, take it or leave it,” Colleen snapped. She unwrapped the bandages. “What do you think?”
Matey squatted and examined the wounds. “I seen worse. Some of ‘em lived.”
“Tell me what to do,” Colleen begged.
Matey peered into Johnny’s half-conscious face. “Don’t know what your chances are, lad, what with two sluts and a quack tending you. Myself, I’d rather be in the hands of the Devil.” He squinted up at the sky. “The sun can do a lot of curing if you keep the flies off.” The old sailor rose to go. “Whatever you do, don’t let that butcher in there go bleedin’ him.”
“Is that all?” Colleen cried.
“All till I say more.” As Matey sauntered away, he grumbled to Pip, “Sluts. Always whinin’ for something.”
“You should never have promised him rum!” Mary whispered to Colleen. Both of them knew that the only way to get rum was by trading one’s body for it, as Cass, Florie and many other convict women did night after night.
Colleen flashed her such a look that Mary drew back. “Ye’ll not tell me what I ought not,” she hissed. “The only thing I ought not, and will not, is let him lie here and die! My Johnny shall live, do you hear me? He shall!”
By Dr. White’s orders, Colleen cleaned Johnny’s wounds and fetched him water and held his head in her lap day after day. She gave him most of her rations and applied the poultices Matey brought her. By the time the ship dropped anchor in Río de Janeiro’s harbour, Johnny was on his way to recovery—not yet walking but sitting, smiling, and definitely alive.
*
To Mary’s eyes, this Brazil was the most beautiful place she had ever beheld. While the Charlotte took on supplies, Mary stood at the rail listening to the voices of traders in small boats below. She heard Lieutenant Tench tell a sailor that the language spoken in this part of the world was Portuguese. Mary was sure she had heard its musical rhythms before, long ago, on one of the voyages with her father. But it could not have been here. Had she ever seen the great green hump of a mountain overlooking Río’s harbour, she would have remembered. It called to her now, and she felt a powerful restlessness. She imagined disguising herself as a man and climbing down the ropes to one of the small trading boats. She imagined diving overboard and swimming to shore in the dead of night. She imagined following a trail up through lush vegetation to the peak of that humpy green mountain. Every stone, every clump of earth, every plant seemed to be calling her. But the weight of her belly held her where she was. Mary knew she would not climb the mountain that pierced the sky above Río de Janeiro, nor see it ever again, except, perhaps, in dreams.
*
The wind was with them on the crossing from Brazil to South Africa. By n
ow everyone aboard—crew and convict, male and female—knew everyone else. There were even a few babies among them, for Mary was not the only woman to have borne the weight of a jailer’s body during her time in prison. Most of the infants did not survive, and from what Mary saw of their scrawny bodies, it was better so. Normally babes were delivered in the hold, with women tending women, but in a few cases a woman in great distress was brought to the surgery. Mary would assist Dr. White, in hopes that the mother would live even if her newborn (more often stillborn) did not. White might have spared Mary that—the sight of women screaming in pain to deliver a babe who would not see the light of day. But he did not, and Mary stayed by his side and did his bidding. Afterwards, when there was a tiny blue body to be wrapped in sacking and dropped overboard into a watery grave, Mary would stare at him with defiant eyes which said, “This will not be the fate of mine.”
In such moments the doctor would look at her with something approaching admiration. He had known hard women before, but Mary was not old enough for experience to have stolen the softness from her face. What he saw in her eyes was something else. If she had been a man, he might have called it courage.
The closer it came to Mary’s time, the calmer she became. Her eyes were radiant, and her skin glowed. Such signs of health, rare among those aboard, owed much to the food White shared with her. While in port at Río, White had seen to it that she had citrus daily, and even cheese, but once at sea again, rations were thin. Once Mary tried to slip a tidbit into her pocket for Colleen to give to Johnny, but the doctor grasped her hand, took the bit from her, and shoved it into his own mouth. “I’m not about to feed the whole ship,” he said angrily. “If you have no care for your baby, damned if I do.”