Behind the Sun

by Deborah Challinor

  Equally irritated by the escape was Liz Parker, who’d had no inkling at all of Ruth Bowler and Mary Ann Howells’ plans. They’d sworn allegiance to her, vowing to stand by her come what may, and running off like that just served to make her look stupid. They hadn’t even been liked by the rest of the prisoners, Liz knew damn well they hadn’t, and now Ruth was being touted as a heroine and Mary Ann a poor, tragic martyr. Well, the silly bitch couldn’t swim — of course she’d drowned! And now she, Liz, was left with only three genuinely loyal souls in her crew. She would have to start recruiting again, bugger it, or she’d lose the balance of power and that whore Friday Woolfe would be lording it all over the prison deck. It’d be intolerable.

  And two women down meant two women fewer to watch over the money she’d stolen from Woolfe’s crew. It already wasn’t easy organising the roster to ensure there was always someone on guard at the bunk: Woolfe and her girls were constantly watching and sniffing around. She hadn’t made one of her crew dig around in that disgusting crapper just to have the dosh pinched back again.

  Now, though, the women were quiet again as seasickness took hold. Around them the cocoon of the Isla’s hull creaked and squeaked as she tacked down the Thames; above them came thuds, bangs and shouts as the crew ran across the deck attending to sails and securing ropes.

  Friday, who really had thought she might be spared because she hadn’t felt even a flutter while the Isla had been bobbing at anchor, tried desperately to pretend she was feeling well, but when she began to yawn repeatedly, her mouth filling with spit, she knew she was in for a rough time. She’d opened the scuttlehole near their bunk and peered through it, hoping the sight of land would stabilise her roiling gut, but the giddying rise and fall of the distant riverbank only made her feel worse. She held on as long as she could, but finally blurted, ‘Harrie! Bucket!’

  Harrie lunged for a slops pail and whipped it over to Friday, who sat on the end of the bunk, feet on the floor, knees apart, bucket between them, and threw up what appeared to be several days’ worth of food while Harrie held her hair out of the way.

  ‘Phew.’ Rachel fanned her own notably pale face. ‘That smells of gin.’

  Friday choked up another surge of vomit, letting go a fart at the same time. Coughing and giving a great, epiglottis-rattling sniff, she hoicked and spat into the bucket.

  ‘Ever the lady,’ Sarah remarked.

  Harrie smoothed back Friday’s hair. ‘Better?

  ‘No.’ Friday lay back on the bunk, then sat up again, looking wretched. ‘God, it doesn’t matter whether I lie down or sit, I feel foul.’

  ‘Are you seasick or is it the gin horrors?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Oh, who cares.’

  Harrie placed her hand on Friday’s sweating forehead. ‘Shall I ask Mr Downey to give you something?’

  Friday groaned and lay down again. ‘No, just let me die.’

  She wasn’t alone in her suffering. At least a third of the women were prostrate on their bunks and the air smelt rank, the sharp stink of vomit enough to encourage those not seasick to part with the contents of their stomachs. James Downey had started visiting the prison deck every few hours to monitor the condition of his charges: so far no one was ill enough to be admitted to the hospital — and he hadn’t expected that anyone would be, as the Isla had not even encountered open water yet — but that time would surely come.

  Still, there was no real need for them to be locked below. During a heated exchange that could be heard by most of the crew, he’d quarrelled with Josiah Holland to let the women out, arguing that to keep them below for such a length of time was inhumane and that no one was likely to attempt escape now that the Isla was under full sail and approaching the Thames estuary. The captain, conceding to himself that it would perhaps be unreasonable to continue to pander to his own dented pride at the expense of the remainder of his human cargo, and mollified by the fact that they had made such good time downriver, relented and suggested to James that the hatch to the prison deck could now be unlocked. James, refraining from rolling his eyes, agreed it was an excellent idea and rushed off to do it himself before the captain changed his mind.

  By the time the women came up on deck the sinking sun behind them had gilded the tips of the waves a dull gold and the final stretch of the Thames curved ahead before it widened into the estuary.

  ‘Where are we?’ Rachel said, gazing across the water, her hand above her eyes like an intrepid explorer. Friday burped loudly, slumped over the rail and was sick again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harrie said, patting Friday’s back. ‘I’ve never been out of London.’

  ‘I don’t feel any better up here than I did below,’ Rachel complained. ‘Do you not feel ill? Lord, I do,’ she added, and gave a sharp retch.

  Harrie shook her head. ‘No, I don’t, sorry. Tuck your hair behind your ears, sweetie, just in case.’

  Sarah took Rachel’s arm and led her to the rail, where Rachel leant over and vomited convulsively. Holding on to Rachel’s apron ties, Sarah said to Harrie, ‘Don’t say sorry just because you’re not seasick. You’re always saying sorry. Stop it. You’ve the least to apologise for out of all of us.’

  Harrie opened her mouth, then shut it again.

  Friday straightened and wiped her face on her apron.

  ‘Friday, that will smell of sick now,’ Harrie scolded.

  ‘Don’t think it’s going to matter soon.’ In the dying light Friday’s face, coated with a thin sheen of sweat despite the brisk breeze coming off the river, glimmered a ghostly white.

  ‘Mr Downey says to drink lots of fluids if you’re vomiting,’ Harrie said. ‘Not alcohol,’ she added hastily.

  Sarah, who, like Harrie, did not feel unwell, said, ‘I wonder what we’re getting for supper?’

  Friday threw up again.

  During the night, the Isla sailed out into the Thames estuary and, by the time the sun rose the following day, was heading into the unforgiving North Sea. Of the one hundred and twenty-two convict women and children aboard, only eleven did not become seasick.

  When James Downey came looking for Harrie, she was tending to Friday and Rachel, both prostrate in the bunk, horribly ill. Sarah, watching, sat very still at the long table, pale and sweaty, holding on to counteract the long, plunging roll of the ship, doing her best to pretend she wasn’t finally feeling sick.

  ‘How are they?’ he asked, and ducked his head to peer in at them in the dim light.

  Harrie felt embarrassed because the entire deck smelt eye-wateringly of sick and worse, and there were women everywhere in various states of undress. She knew they probably didn’t care, especially while they felt so ill, but she wondered if Mr Downey might.

  Rachel let out a pathetic little moan. ‘Can you not give us something to make us feel better? Please?’

  Friday simply covered her white, sweating face with her arm.

  James shook his head regretfully. ‘There is no cure for seasickness, I’m afraid. Drink as much water as you can manage. You’ll find your sea legs soon.’

  ‘Will they, sir?’ Harrie whispered when he straightened up again.

  ‘I expect so. Most people do. The first bout is always the worst.’ James moved her a short distance down the aisle. ‘I must say you look remarkably hale.’

  His comment sounded to Harrie like an accusation and she felt the familiar heat born of guilt creep across her face.

  ‘You’re not feeling sick at all?’

  Harrie shook her head.

  ‘Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?’ James said. ‘Because I require someone to assist me in the hospital. I thought you might be rather suitable, especially as you’re not currently indisposed.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Harrie replied. ‘I’d rather stay here and look after my friends.’

  Realising what she’d said, or, more critically, to whom she’d said it, she clapped her hands over her mouth.

  James frowned. ‘I don’t think you understand, Harriet. That
wasn’t an invitation. I’m telling you that you will be working for me in the hospital. I need someone with steady hands, a quiet disposition and her wits about her. I believe that is you. You can be of more assistance in the hospital helping with the infants and the seriously ill than you can here. Now, follow me please.’

  Her face flaming, Harrie did. She followed James up the ladder and staggered across the waistdeck, where, wrestling with her skirts, she was buffeted and shoved about by the harsh, rain-seeded wind snapping the sails overhead, then down another hatch into the hospital. James pointed out that the prison and hospital were actually connected by a door in the bulkhead dividing them, to provide patient access on occasions when using the ladders was impractical, but kept locked by two hefty deadbolts on the hospital side. There were only two sets of keys: James held one of them; Captain Holland the other.

  The hospital certainly smelt better than the prison deck, though the odour of vomit was still detectable. There was already someone there helping: a woman Harrie didn’t know but had seen before often enough. She was holding a baby, patting it briskly as it mewled and spewed onto a strategically placed square of cloth draped over her shoulder.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’ James asked as he brushed rain off his coat.

  ‘I know her,’ the other woman said. ‘It’s Harrie Clarke, isn’t it?’

  Harrie nodded.

  Caught off guard, James laughed. ‘Harrie? Is that what they call you?’

  Harrie felt herself reddening again. ‘Yes, sir, sometimes.’

  James silently debated the issue of protocol for a moment, then said, ‘Actually, I’d rather you didn’t call me “sir”. “Mister” is fine, if you have to call me anything, all right?’

  Harrie nodded yet again, feeling as though her head might be about to fall off. But she would nod all day for the next month if it made up for the terrible, rude, selfish thing she had said before. Mr Downey was right — he couldn’t look after all the little children by himself. But, oh, were the others all right? Sarah said she wasn’t sick, but she was and just wouldn’t admit it; Harrie knew she’d soon be throwing up as violently as the others. And she had gone off and left them and they were family now, sisters, and you didn’t just go off and leave family like that when they needed help. You did everything you possibly could for them. Everything.

  Alerted by the woebegone expression on her normally pleasant face that Harrie wasn’t very happy, James said, ‘I apologise: that was uncalled for. How would you prefer to be addressed? As Harriet, or as Harrie?’

  Harrie blinked, completely flustered by an apology from the sort of person who normally would never even think to say sorry to the likes of her. ‘Um, oh, Harrie. Thank you.’

  ‘Well, then, Harrie, this is Lil Foster.’

  Lil nodded, her hand not missing a beat as she kept up a gentle rhythmic paddling on the baby’s swaddled bottom. ‘You’re in Friday Woolfe’s crew. I saw you in Newgate. What are you on the boat for?’

  ‘Shoplifting. Seven years,’ Harrie said, embarrassed to be confessing her crime in front of Mr Downey, even though he knew about it, but accustomed by now to telling other women why she was being transported. For a strange, disjointed moment it felt as though Mr Downey were the one on the wrong side of the bars, not her and Lil.

  ‘Fancy. You wouldn’t think so to look at you.’

  Harrie was getting quite sick of hearing that. Perhaps she should knock out her front teeth and get a few tattoos. ‘And you?’ She didn’t really care what Lil Foster had done, but knew it was the convention to ask.

  ‘Highway robbery, life.’

  ‘Really?’ Harrie was quite impressed. Lil didn’t look the type, either. She looked…motherly…and to be in her early thirties. She didn’t say it, however, because no doubt Lil was sick of hearing that. ‘Highway robbery’ usually conjured in the public imagination infamous Dick Turpin and Sixteen String Jack and the like, but it referred to theft of property from a traveller using any public road by one or more thieves on horseback. Lil’s involvement could have been little more than waiting to carry the stolen goods to the pawn shop; she needn’t have been the one brandishing the pistols and demanding, ‘Stand and deliver!’ Though you couldn’t be sure of anything on God’s green earth, Harrie was fast learning.

  ‘They will survive, your friends,’ James assured Harrie. ‘Try not to worry about them. It is only seasickness and, as I said, it will pass. It’s only the very young and those already physically indisposed who are really at risk. As you know I have advised that it is better managed above deck, where there is a view of the horizon. It helps to settle the stomach. But it seems that most prefer to languish below and I don’t blame them. The weather is far from inviting. So we must wait until it eases. And when it does, the seasickness probably will, too. Until then, I’ll need your help here in the hospital.’

  James had brought in the sickest of the small children, three less than a year old and two more still in nappies, and two of the pregnant women who couldn’t keep even water down. Harrie and Lil spent most of their time cleaning up sick and trying to get the patients to drink, because Mr Downey said it was very important, especially for the little ones because they dehydrated so rapidly.

  Lil talked a lot but she worked hard as well and time passed quickly, and when Mr Downey told Harrie to have a break she went to check on Friday and Rachel and to pass on the surgeon’s news that they would shortly be heading into the English Channel, where the seas would be likely to settle somewhat.

  Sarah had forced herself to go on, wiping Friday’s and Rachel’s faces, giving them water, until finally she’d collapsed herself, dizzy, vomiting and really angry about succumbing. When Harrie found her slumped over the table, sick all over her skirt, she helped her out of her smelly clothes and dragged her into the bunk.

  The seas did settle. Slightly. The ship changed direction with a great cracking and snapping of sails and a gentle tilt so that everything slid but didn’t topple, then an hour or so later Harrie felt through the deck a different rhythm to the ocean and the Isla seemed to adjust her gait as she turned south to follow the coasts of Kent.

  Eight

  Those a little less sensitive to the rolling of the ship managed to throw off the worst effects of seasickness as the Isla picked up a fair nor-nor’-east wind and sailed past The Downs, Deal and Dover, then, still hugging the coast, Hastings, Eastbourne and Brighton. Captain Holland’s intentions of managing his prisoners by employing a strict daily timetable, however, were in tatters, as half the women were still laid low. On the other hand, James Downey organised new rosters to facilitate the extra laundering of soiled bedding and clothing. As a result, the upper decks were daily festooned with drying blankets and items of clothing flapping stiffly in the wind, while mattresses were draped over everything, hampering Captain Holland’s men while they worked. Resignedly, the captain held his tongue — it was always this way at the start of a voyage and in rough seas. You could expect little else from a ship packed to the gunwales with landlubbers.

  They were not at ease, though, the convict women. They were distressed at being transported far from England, and the drowning of Mary Ann Howells had unsettled them even further. Her pale wraith had been seen floating just beneath the surface of the water on several occasions — and once even hovering some feet above it, level with the scuttleholes on the prison deck, imploring to be let in to rejoin her friends — and Matilda Bain had woken one night to the sound of her name being called by a thin, sorrowful voice beyond the Isla’s hull. Hysteria, Captain Holland muttered to James Downey, and James agreed, but a hysteria born of trepidation and despair, and so not entirely invalid.

  On the seventh day of May, to the relief of most of those who sailed on her, the Isla dropped anchor at the Mother Bank off the Isle of Wight. There they harboured for five days while more provisions were brought on board and while they waited for the thirteen extra prisoners to arrive from Bristol gaol. Though it was not that the pr
isoners were late — it was because Captain Holland was early, having decided not to hang about at Woolwich.

  Amos Furniss told Lil Foster, who had dark eyes and a proper, womanly figure, that the captain had only shoved off early from Woolwich merely because the winds had been favourable. He reasoned that if he shared privileged information with her, a lowly convict, she might feel beholden to him and let him take liberties. It was also another little strike in his private campaign against Josiah Holland, who had humiliated him once too often in front of the crew, and who’d appointed Silas bloody Warren first mate over Amos, even though Warren was younger and a less competent seaman.

  Lil told Amos Furniss to bugger off. And, having not had the chance to say goodbye to her man and their children because of the captain’s arbitrary decision to leave early, she passed on to everyone else Furniss’s gossip. The mood below deck, therefore, was fairly volatile by the time the Bristol prisoners finally did arrive.

  They were ferried by lighter over from Portsmouth and winched up one by one in the bosun’s chair. The Newgate women, however, did not witness this as they had been sent below to clear the decks. Their humour had not been improved by the fact that Mr Downey had told them that, to make room for the thirteen extra prisoners, they could no longer spread out on the prison deck, some until now enjoying the luxury of only two to a bunk.

  ‘I bet they’re as rough as guts,’ Friday said, cleaning under her toenails with one of her earrings. ‘Bristol’s a mean town.’