Convict Queen

by Marina Oliver

  *

  Another cart, this time going southwards. There were already several women in it, and a sorry group of men following on foot. They were all shackled, and later, when she recovered her wits and began to ask questions, she was told they had come from Lancaster or Chester, and were being taken to the ships anchored in the River Thames.

  'The ships? The ones taking us to New South Wales?'

  'Not yet,' one of the guards, more friendly than the rest, replied. 'These hulks are old warships, too old and rotten to sail. They're prisons, holding men and women until there's room for them on the transport ships.'

  'Then how long will we be there?'

  'Can't say. Weeks, maybe months.'

  Molly shivered. She had only the dress she'd been wearing when they'd arrested her, that warm May day, and by now the weather was getting colder. She might die of cold rather than the noose if they were kept on board a ship during the winter months.

  Gradually, seeing how the men escorting them treated the prisoners, Molly's apathy turned to furious anger. It was men who had brought her to this pass. She thought of them. Richard Lewis had lost her the Ludlow job. William Gough had taken advantage of her fondness for him. Her husband had deserted her, when the fault, the theft, was his. John Powell and Francis Clinton, who had known her all her life, had not believed her. John Maebury was the same. And all the time there was the enmity of Johnny Cound and, through him, his father.

  Then there had been the judge and jury who had not wanted to listen to her. Talking to the other women, Molly discovered that most of them had been sentenced to seven years. Only a few had been given her sentence of fourteen, and as far as she could tell some of those with seven years had stolen goods of more value than the hemp. Why had she been treated worse than them? Did it depend on the judge in the courts where they had been tried? Or had her judge taken revenge on her for her attempts to plead innocence?

  Never again, she vowed, would she trust any man, though she'd use them. She was on her own, and if nothing happened to save her, facing perils she had never dreamt of on a long sea voyage.

  It was cold now, winter was approaching as they travelled southeastwards, gathering more convicts as they went from Stafford and gaols from the north. It became quite a procession of waggons. Molly had never travelled in this direction, and she watched all the time in case she had an opportunity to escape, and make her way back home. What she would do then she did not know. She'd be compelled to hide, she had no money, and to survive she would have to steal. She smiled grimly. She was branded a thief now, despite her innocence, so she might as well steal if that was the only way open to her.

  There was no opportunity to escape. They were always shackled, joined to one another with heavy chains, even when they slept, huddled together in the cart for warmth. As she became reconciled to the fact that, whether she wished it or not, she was going to be sent away from England, she began to try and memorise as much as she could about it. There were the gently rolling hills, the green pastures, the trees, by now denuded of their bright autumn foliage, the pretty cottages and the occasional glimpses of the big houses of the aristocracy.

  From what she recalled of Mr Lewis's books there was nothing like this in New South Wales, just naked savages who had no houses, and strange animals and trees the like of which no one in England had ever seen.

  Molly gradually became aware of the attentions the guards were giving to the younger and prettier of the women. When they were let down from the cart to relieve themselves, the younger ones showing shapely ankles and calves as they clambered out, some of the guards, the more decent, turned away to give them a sense of privacy, but one or two others would stare, licking their lips. If the women had not been shackled together, Molly was convinced they would have been raped whenever the opportunity came.

  She began to think and plan. Men had this weakness, and she would do her best to take advantage of it. Women had little power, but if were clever they could use their bodies and men's lusts for their own benefit.

  *

  Molly could not imagine what the sea was like, or the ships big enough to sail thousands of miles across them. She'd seen pictures in some of Mr Lewis's books, but pictures didn't tell her how big either the sea or the ships really were. The sea was big stretches of water, like huge lakes, hundreds of miles, a distance she could not imagine, nothing like the small pools she was used to in Corvedale, or even the River Severn she'd seen in Shrewsbury.

  It took weeks to reach London, and Molly was appalled by the size of it. They'd passed through several towns on the way, some bigger than Shrewsbury, but none were as big as this. From the top of one hill she could see buildings stretching for miles. Over it was a pall of smoke, but she could detect the gleam of water snaking through the murk. Was this the sea? Or the River Thames? She had little idea of how far London was from the sea, or how long the river was before it joined the sea.

  These people did not stare at the convoy of prisoners as much as folk in other towns, and Molly assumed they were accustomed to the sight of poor wretches being transferred to their floating prisons. She had bitterly resented the curious stares, the jeers and laughter which sometimes followed them, and had responded by holding her head high and staring back at the people who mocked, while many of the other women tried to hide their faces. Never, she vowed, would she let herself show the shame and despair she felt.

  At last they came to a halt on what Molly had been told was a jetty. The wind was keen, and Molly shivered more from the cold than fear of what awaited her. She could and would endure that and somehow, survive. The river was much wider than the Severn at Shrewsbury and seemed full of ships. There must be hundreds of them, thousands of masts and miles of rigging, crammed tightly together. They were huge, much bigger than the boats she had occasionally seen on the River Teme in Ludlow.

  'Well, now, aren't you lucky ladies,' one of the guards said. 'Ye'll be going straight to Father Neptune, not the 'ulks.'

  They were put into small boats and rowed out to a ship moored some distance from shore. The boat rocked alarmingly, and the rowers chuckled at the screams and cries of fear from some of the women when the boat dipped into the waves or the water splashed onto them from the dripping oars.

  The ship, once they had been forced to scramble up a swaying rope ladder, was worse, if anything, than Shrewsbury gaol. The deck was crowded with pens full of animals, pigs and sheep and hens, and wherever there was a space crates and bundles were piled up so that there was little room to move. There were soldiers there, as well as sailors, and they seemed to be in charge.

  The only good thing, to Molly, though several of the women protested, was the bath, and the temporary release from the shackles. By now she had abandoned all hope of privacy, and did not object when her clothes were stripped from her and she was pushed into a huge tub of cold sea water along with some of the others. It was not much colder than the air around her. Thankfully she ducked her head under the water, feeling the relief when the greasiness of her hair soaked away. She scrubbed her body with the rough soap, tried to wash her hair, and despite the cold which made her shiver uncontrollably, for it was mid-November and already deep winter, tried to resist the soldiers who dragged her out to make room for others.

  Shackled once more, forced to resume their old and dirty dresses, the women were thrust down steep ladders onto a lower deck, barely high enough for them to stand upright. Molly almost gave up when she saw this foul-smelling, lower deck, lit only by faint light coming from the open hatches. She thought they were no better than the pens for the animals she had seen on the deck of the ship. They at least were in the open air. Here there were row upon row of cages, with just narrow passageways between. The women were thrust into cages at the far end of the deck. What the stench down here would be when this mass of wretched humanity had been living together for weeks on end she dreaded to think.

  There were already dozens of women there, crouched or lying on the thin layer of straw
which provided the only bedding in the cages, barely big enough to lie down at full stretch, that filled the deck. As the women were thrust into the cages, fights immediately broke out as they tried to snatch extra straw for their own use. A soldier with a whip used it mercilessly until order was restored, and the women, beaten and cowed, huddled together for warmth. Some, Molly discovered, had come from Newgate goal in London, but the majority were from other parts of the country.

  *

  Later that day they heard another lot of convicts being brought on board. These were all men, and one of the red-coated soldiers, who seemed more friendly than the rest, told the women the men had been imprisoned on the hulks.

  'Wharra them?' one of the women asked, her northern accent so broad Molly had difficulty in understanding her.

  'Prison ships. The gaols are so crowded some of the men were lodged there, for months and years, some of 'em, and forced to work on the roads and docks while waiting for the transports. There'll be more of 'em tomorrow.'

  The women could see little in the gloom below deck, but they could hear the protests of the men being thrust into the cages that there wasn't room for so many, not enough for them all to lie down, especially shackled as they were.

  The soldier shook his head.

  'They'll cram in as many as they can. That's how they'll earn their profit. And it's no better for the crew or the Corps. There's been so many deserters it's been a problem for the Captain to find a full crew. No one likes being herded together like a flock of sheep.'

  Molly managed to find a space near the passageway, and she plucked the soldier's jacket as he went past.

  'Please, can I get some paper? And a pen and ink? I want to write to my Dad, tell him what's happening.'

  'You can write?' he asked, sounding surprised.

  'I had some schooling. Yes, I can write well enough. Can you get me some paper, please?'

  He looked at her for a few moments, then nodded. 'I think I know someone who might have it,' he said, and moved away.

  He was gone for a long time, and Molly thought he'd forgotten her, but after what seemed hours he came back and he had the paper she'd asked for, and a quill.

  'I have to read the letters,' he warned her, 'so be careful not to offend anyone by complaints.'

  'All I want to do is let my Dad and my children know where I am.'

  'Very well. Here's the paper. Take care not to spill the ink, we don't have a great deal on board. I'll come back in twenty minutes.'

  Molly thanked him, and found a corner of the cage where she could rest the paper on a board, and where a faint gleam of light slanting down from one of the hatches helped her to see what she was doing. The quill was rough, but she had no way of sharpening it. The other women watched her, and after a few minutes one of them asked if she would write a letter for her.

  'I want to say goodbye to me man,' she said, suppressing a sob, 'but I never learned to write. He'll get the parson to read it to 'im.'

  Other women asked her, and she thought she would be busy all morning if she were permitted to write them all.

  It was growing dark and Molly could not see to write any more. The soldier, who seemed sympathetic, said perhaps she could go up to the deck in the morning to write other letters, so Molly gave him the inkwell and found enough room to lie down. The other women seemed a little in awe of her, since none of them could write, and they didn't try to crowd her, fighting for the extra inch of space, as they had the previous night.

  *

  It had been a miserable night. Molly could not sleep, for it was stuffy as well as bitterly cold, and the noises the other women made kept her awake. The buckets they were given, the only places to relieve themselves, soon began to stink. It was worse than John Maebury's pigsty. How would she ever endure weeks in such conditions?

  When the soldier came back the next morning, long after she'd decided he'd forgotten her, he gave her a sheet of paper, a better quill, and an inkwell.

  'Make a list of what the others want to say,' he ordered, 'then you can go on deck. I can't let the others go there, taking up space, as we've more men from the hulks coming.'

  The other women grumbled, but a few of them told Molly what they wanted to say, and when the soldier came back she was ready to follow him and clamber up the steep ladders to the deck. It seemed even more crowded than before, but he led her to a space in a corner and she found a chest to sit on, and a crate on which to rest the paper. Here they were sheltered from the bitter wind by one of the pens holding pigs. Molly breathed in the air, redolent of swine, but this, she decided, was far better than the stench of too many humans crowded into the airless deck below.

  Molly wrote a letter to her father, protesting her innocence, and begging him to make sure her children were cared for. Some of the letters she was asked to write for her fellow-convicts moved her to tears, as she wrote for people leaving their loved ones behind, probably for ever. Mothers had been separated from husbands and children, from parents and friends. Most had been convicted of small thefts, and their sentences of hanging changed to transportation. Many times they said they would have preferred hanging to this present misery and uncertainty.

  It was the duty of the officers to read all the letters, and because Molly was writing so many for other people, one of the officers began to take notice of her.

  'Where do you come from?' he asked.

  'What's it to you? Going to take me back there?' she asked, grinning up at him.

  'Not London, by your speech.'

  'A small village in Shropshire,' she told him. 'You'll not have heard of it.'

  'Maybe I have. I'm Joshua Mullins, from Ireland, but I had an uncle lived near Coalbrookdale. Worked for the Darbys, he did. I stayed with him once as a lad. Saw the iron bridge. Wonderful, that is. Did you ever see it?'

  Molly shook her head. 'Ma and I were going to walk there one day, a year last autumn, but it's a long way from Corfton, and Ma, she was ill, and then she died.'

  The memory of her mother's death overcame her for a moment, and she stifled a sob. The soldier patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

  'Don't take on, lass. She'll be in a better place.'

  'And won't see my shame!' Molly concentrated on blinking back her tears, and looked across at the other ships moored in the Thames estuary.

  'Misfortune. But it's a pity you couldn't see it, a marvel, it was. They'll be building iron ships next.'

  'Like iron cooking pots? They won't float!'

  'We'll see.'

  'Are any other ships all coming with us?'

  'Yes. There's the Surprize and the Scarborough, they're taking convicts, as well as the Justinian, which is mainly a supply ship. The Guardian and the Lady Juliana left months ago.'

  'Three ships full of convicts? Packed in like we are? There must be hundreds of us.'

  'There's also supplies on all these ships, for I doubt the colony already set up has all it wants yet. At least you're not on the Lady Juliana.'

  'Why, what's wrong with it? Will it sink?'

  'No. It left in July, full of women, whores mainly, who are intended for the men. There's very few women so far. If you've a mind to marry when you get there, you'll have your pick. There's the marines, been out there from the start, and us, the Corps, going to replace them.'

  Molly looked at him speculatively. 'Are you married?' she asked, making her voice soft.

  He glanced at her, and she could see his adam's apple moving in his throat.

  'You'll miss having a woman to do your laundry, mend your clothes,' she said, even more softly. 'And to warm your bed o' nights.'

  He looked at her properly for the first time. 'Are you offering?'

  'Well, you've been kind to me, and I'll be missing my man too. We could comfort one another.'

  *

  He grinned and nodded, then left her. She was much better looking than most of the drabs he'd seen on board, and she was willing. He was not a man to do without a woman for long, and since he'd l
eft Gibraltar and Luisa, that dark-eyed Spanish lass who'd been so accommodating, he'd had none but the whores who serviced the sailors swarming over the docks. He might try to get this one for himself. He had no illusions about what would happen to most of the women aboard. They'd be the common property of the sailors and the soldiers, apart from a lucky few who caught the eye of men like himself. And he had no fancy to have to use a woman worn out by several before him.

  He began to make plans. He was fortunate, as a corporal, to have a cabin he had to share with just one other. There wouldn't be room to keep a woman, or two, since he assumed the other corporal would soon choose one too. It wasn't as though he was a nob like D'Arcy Wentworth, with his own cabin, where his harlot would travel in comfort. They would reach some agreement, and since he was senior to the other man he'd lay down the terms.

  *

  Molly stayed on deck, keeping quiet and hoping not to be noticed and sent below. She took as long as she could over the letters. It was noisy, with men shouting and ropes flapping against what she decided were the masts. The animals on deck were also making their discomfort known, and on the shore more men were shouting, carts rumbling, and there was a rushing noise she thought must be the river washing against the ship. She looked around, seeing sailors busy with ropes and heaps of canvas she guessed were the sails. She'd seen pictures of ships in Mr Lewis's books, but she had no idea how they were made to move, or how such movement was guided.

  Sighing, and wrinkling her nose at the smell, which was almost as obnoxious here as down below, but different, sharper and with things she couldn't identify, she began another letter.

  Very soon she heard the sound of tramping feet, and shouts as men clambered up the ladders from the jetty. First came more soldiers, then men she assumed were prisoners. They looked even more disreputable than those who had walked from Shrewsbury. They were skinny, most of them, wearing rags barely decent. Some were only boys. More soldiers, smart in their uniforms, followed, and some cast curious glances at Molly. A couple smiled and winked at her, and she began to wonder how she might take advantage of their admiration if Joshua did not help her. The voyage would, she knew, take many weeks, and these men would be missing the wives and whores they'd left behind. She took a deep breath. They'd get no favours from her without something in exchange.