Behind the Sun

by Deborah Challinor

  As she shakily found her feet, a gush of something warm came out of her, and she prayed it was only his mess, not blood.

  She staggered the few feet across the cabin to the door.

  Matthew hadn’t been able to sleep, and there had been a thumping noise going on and, about ten minutes earlier, a strangled sort of yelp that had sounded quite close. It had bothered him, so he’d climbed out of bed and pulled on his trousers and shirt.

  Now, someone’s cabin door was opening and closing. He went to his own, opened it a crack, and looked out.

  Hester Seaton sat up in bed, her hair in curling rags under a lace bed cap, staring into the darkness, her daughters swaying in their hammocks gently above her. She, too, had heard worrying noises — a girl’s cry?

  Octavius would be snoring his head off next door, having spent himself, she reflected disgustedly, thinking about all that nubile flesh scampering about on the deck below him.

  Really, it was hard enough trying to teach them to read and write: she couldn’t be responsible for what happened to them if they chose to run about after dark. Truly, they were morally bankrupt and quite beyond redemption.

  Deliberately, she lay down and jammed her chubby fingers in her ears.

  In the corridor’s dim light, Matthew saw what he at first thought was a pile of rags on the ground. Then he made out a small, white foot and realised it was a child.

  The child pushed herself into a kneeling position and burst into tears.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him. She had long, pale blonde hair, strands of which, he saw to his horror, appeared to be stuck to her face with blood. His heart thudded even more wildly as he realised she was one of Harriet Clarke’s friends.

  ‘Oh God, are you all right?’ he said again, bending down to help her to her feet. ‘What’s happened? Has there been an accident?’

  But she shook her head and shoved him away, then sort of slumped to the ground again. So he picked her up and carried her to the door that led out to the waistdeck, struggled to open it, and stepped outside into the chilly darkness.

  She thumped his chest weakly with a fist and muttered something.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  She said it again and he only just realised her intent before it was too late. Quickly, he set her down in the shelter of the foredeck so she could crouch and vomit.

  As he rested a steadying hand on her narrow back something struck him across the side of the head and sent him sprawling, his ear on fire. He lay stunned, face against the tar- and salt-smelling deck, then his head was hauled back by the hair, almost ripping off his other ear, and he was staring up at another of Harriet’s friends, the big red-haired girl. The loud one.

  ‘What the fuck have you done to her, you dirty little scourer?!’

  She gave his head a sharp shake and he thought his hair might come out by the roots. He attempted to roll away, but her other hand tightened around his balls. Oh God. He could hear the little blonde girl coughing and spitting, then her wispy-sounding voice.

  ‘Friday, no. He was helping me.’

  The pressure on his crotch eased.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s had an accident,’ Matthew wheezed. ‘She was in the corridor outside my cabin. On the ground.’

  The vice-like grip on his hair abruptly let go as the one called Friday hissed, ‘It was that fucking Keegan, wasn’t it? Oh Jesus, Rachel, your face!’ She abandoned him to crouch beside the smaller girl, draping a muscled arm around her.

  The little one, Rachel, started crying again. ‘He had some work for me. I thought the money could go towards my Lucas fund. It was supposed to be laundering.’

  ‘But it wasn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But he helped himself despite the “misunderstanding”?’

  Rachel nodded.

  And Matthew received the most awful, gut-plummeting shock: he was looking at a girl who had just been raped. A moment later he felt sick to his stomach, then a complete and utter fool for assuming over the past weeks that Gabriel Keegan was a decent fellow, for spending hours passing the time of day with him, for dining at the same table pretending they were all perfectly civilised people.

  But he expected it was nothing compared to the way this girl Rachel felt.

  ‘Who goes there?’

  Matthew jumped: it was young Joel Meek, the third mate, doing his rounds on the early watch, his lantern held high.

  ‘Sorry, sir, didn’t mean to interrupt, like.’ Meek sounded embarrassed.

  ‘You’re not,’ Matthew said. ‘In fact, I’d like to make a complaint. Please go and wake the captain. There’s been —’

  ‘No!’ Wincing, Rachel struggled to her feet. ‘No, please, don’t.’

  ‘No, don’t,’ Friday repeated quietly, but with such an undercurrent of menace in her voice that the hairs on Matthew’s arms stirred. ‘We’ll deal with this our way.’

  ‘There’s been what?’ Meek demanded, peering at them suspiciously.

  Friday shook her head. ‘Nothing. Forget the man said anything, or don’t bother looking for me next time you’re lonely.’

  And Matthew received yet another shock. Obviously he was even more naive than he’d known. He wondered who else aboard the Isla knew. Clearly the crew were in on it, but surely not Captain Holland and Mr Downey? Feeling more than a little silly, he watched Meek struggle between loyalty to the master and desire for his favourite whore, then turn and walk off into the darkness.

  He protested, ‘But you can’t let Keegan get —’

  Friday turned on him. ‘Look, what do you think the master’s going to say when a convict girl complains of being raped in some cove’s cabin in the middle of the night, eh?’

  Matthew knew exactly what Captain Holland would say, whether he was aware of the after-dark prostitution or not and, for the shortest of seconds, to his mortification, he caught himself thinking the very same thing.

  His face betrayed him and Friday saw it. Her lip curled in disgust. ‘Ah, you’re all the fucking same.’ She slid her arm around Rachel’s waist. ‘Can you walk, love?’

  Rachel nodded. ‘I think so. But it hurts.’

  ‘We’ll get him, sweetie. Don’t worry, he’ll pay.’

  Together they shuffled towards the hatch to the prison deck. Friday squatted, raised the hatch cover with impressive ease, and they disappeared down the ladder, leaving Matthew standing on deck in the wind and the dark, feeling like a thorough cad.

  When Rachel awoke early the next morning she could barely move. Her whimpers woke Harrie, who let out an appalled squeak when she caught sight of her friend’s swollen, blood-smeared face.

  ‘Oh, Rachel, sweetheart, what happened? Did you fall in the night?’ Harrie scuffled up onto her knees. ‘Why didn’t you wake me? Here, let me have a proper look.’

  ‘Shush, them in the next bunk are still asleep,’ Friday said tonelessly over her shoulder. ‘And no, she didn’t fall.’

  Harrie’s heart contracted as though dipped in ice water and all of a sudden she wanted to put her hands over her ears. She hadn’t felt like doing that for ages, but now, just like that, she did.

  She ran her fingers down Rachel’s slender arms — badly bruised, she saw now — and gently closed them over the battered little hands. The nails were broken and rimmed with dried blood. And Harrie knew.

  ‘Keegan got at her,’ Friday confirmed.

  Harrie began quietly to weep. She reached for Rachel, pulling her into her arms. Rachel flopped bonelessly and Harrie cradled her, rocking her slowly, stroking her tangled hair, wiping away the tears and bloodied snot with the corner of a blanket.

  Sarah, lying on her back staring at the bottom of the bunk above, said bitterly, ‘So what are we going to do about him?’ She’d been awake for hours, woken by Friday then too angry to sleep.

  ‘She needs to see Mr Downey,’ Harrie said in a low voice over the top of Rachel’s head, brushing away her own tears with
the heel of her hand.

  Friday said, ‘No. She doesn’t want to. And this is our business, just the four of us.’

  ‘But what if he’s hurt her?’

  ‘He’s bloody done that, all right. She could hardly walk last night.’ Friday told Harrie how she had found Rachel. ‘You can have a look, can’t you?’

  ‘But I don’t know what to look for.’

  ‘You birthed Janie’s baby,’ Sarah pointed out.

  Janie’s face appeared upside down over the end of the upper bunk. ‘That’s true, you did a grand job of that.’

  Friday looked up crossly. ‘Have you been listening to our private conversation?’

  ‘I can’t help it if the babe needs feeding at all hours.’

  ‘What about Sally?’

  ‘Dead to the world.’

  ‘Well, shut up about it, all right?’ Friday growled. ‘This really is private. I mean it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Janie said. ‘I knew that Keegan was a bloody queer gill. When you catch up with him, give him a good kicking from me, will you?’

  In the end Rachel agreed to see James Downey, but only because she didn’t want to encounter Gabriel Keegan and to stay below deck she needed the surgeon’s permission. Harrie told James that Rachel had walked into a post in the night and banged her face and couldn’t manage the ladder, so James, reluctantly and only because it was Harrie who had asked, unlocked the door in the bulkhead between the prison and the hospital.

  He was expecting to examine someone who fancied a few days in bed, as many of the prisoners often did when they tired of their daily chores, so when Rachel Winter limped through the door from the prison deck, he was startled by her swollen nose and the purpling bruises beneath her eyes. He ushered her through to his cubicle and helped her to sit up on the examination table.

  ‘Harrie said you walked into a post?’

  Rachel nodded. James turned up the wick on the lamp hanging above the table to see better.

  ‘Last night, this was?’

  Rachel nodded again.

  ‘You walked into it, or you ran into it?’

  ‘I walked into it.’ Her voice sounded very nasal, which wasn’t at all surprising.

  ‘Look up at the ceiling, please.’

  James peered up Rachel’s nose. Both nostrils were full of dried blood and mucus, and the septum cartilage was markedly crooked. He didn’t want to touch it: it would only hurt her.

  ‘It does appear to be broken, I’m afraid. However, I really am at a loss to understand how you did this simply by walking into a post.’ It looked to him as though she had been punched directly in the face.

  ‘I might have been running,’ Rachel admitted.

  James caught her eye and held it; there was a long moment of silence, but she didn’t drop her gaze. He’d noted the limp of course, and there were also fresh bruises on her right wrist, not quite hidden by her sleeve, and several torn fingernails. He knew she was lying.

  ‘How are your teeth? None have come loose?’

  She shook her head.

  He gave her another chance to tell him. ‘Would you like me to attend to anything else? While you’re here?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  James sat down. ‘I can’t do anything to fix a broken nose, Rachel. I can give you laudanum for the discomfort until the swelling and bruising go away.’ One more opportunity. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else?’

  She hesitated, then said, ‘I don’t want to go up the ladder. I feel dizzy. But I can do my chores below, just for a few days.’

  James winced, then made himself stop, aware she was watching him. He’d forgotten she wanted a sick note; this was even worse than he’d suspected. If someone had hit her and she didn’t want to go up on deck, it was likely one of the crew. And if that were the case, there might have been more involved than just simple assault. Oh Christ. This had happened on one of the other transports he’d superintended and it had been an utter nightmare.

  ‘Rachel, I know —’

  She cut him off. ‘I’d be very grateful for a note. And I’ll take the medicine, thank you very much, sir.’

  James looked at her. She was sitting up straight, her head was held high and her huge cornflower-blue eyes were bright with tears, but he didn’t think they were tears of misery or pain. He could see anger in them, and a flash of pride, but nothing that spoke of weakness.

  ‘You can come back about this, you know.’

  She nodded and slid off the table, wincing as her feet hit the floor. He gave her lint with which to pack her nose should it bleed again and a small bottle of laudanum — telling her not to share it with anyone else — and let her back into the prison.

  Eleven

  Rachel stayed below for four days. Everyone was told she’d walked into something on the way back from the water closet, but rumours flew and some of them were almost the truth. The bruises on her face went from purple to green and her battered nether regions were tender for several days and stung when she peed, but the abrasions on her knees soon scabbed over.

  Her physical wounds were healing, but she feared that her feelings of shame and humiliation, and her anger, might never go away. She could not stop thinking about what he had done to her, going over and over in her head what she might have done to stop him, what she should have done.

  The others had interrogated her about what had happened, particularly Friday and Sarah, and she’d told them everything, except for the part that Bella Jackson had played. God, what a gulpy little child she had been, mistaking manipulation and nastiness and greed for kindness. But if she told them what Bella had done, Friday would be so angry and have a go at Bella and probably start a war and they had such a long way to go yet to New South Wales.

  She couldn’t settle. She knew she was driving the others to distraction with her bad temper and her questions about Keegan. Had they seen him? Was he on the foredeck? What was he doing? The thought of him was driving her insane. Then Harrie noticed she hadn’t taken any of her laudanum, the taste of which she loathed, and made her, which she had to admit did help her to feel better — calmer and sort of removed from everything that was going on. But then the laudanum ran out, her bad temper returned, and at breakfast on the fifth day she announced that she wanted to go up on deck again.

  ‘Why?’ Sarah asked, wary of the belligerent tone in Rachel’s voice.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? I’ve just as much right to go up on deck as anyone else.’

  ‘Not sure I like the sound of this,’ Sarah said out of the side of her mouth to Friday, sitting beside her at the long table.

  ‘Well, too bad,’ Rachel said, overhearing. ‘I feel like a bloody mole stuck down here.’

  Harrie said cautiously, ‘Sweetheart, do you remember you wanted to stay below for a little while? And you do seem to be, well, thinking about that man a lot.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say Keegan’s name. She’d been so horribly, horribly wrong about him. ‘I’m not sure it’s good for you.’

  Rachel banged her spoon into her gruel and pushed her bowl away. ‘No, none of it’s been very good for me, Harrie.’

  The others stared at her, startled by the vitriol in her voice.

  ‘I want to see him. You said you’d make him pay, Friday, and you haven’t!’

  Friday leant across the table. ‘Be quiet, Rachel. Do you want everyone to know? The reason we haven’t done anything is because we haven’t seen hide nor hair of the prick. He’s hiding. We haven’t been lying to you, you know. No one’s seen him.’ She swivelled sharply to face Matilda Bain on her right. ‘Having a good listen, are you?’

  The old woman’s whiskery mouth trembled with affront. ‘Not my fault I’ve got ears.’

  ‘Well, bugger off and dribble your food somewhere else.’

  Matilda Bain whined, ‘I’m entitled to sit and eat where —’

  Friday gave Matilda a good shove: she went backwards off the bench, dirty, claw-toed feet in the air and her bowl of gruel all down her
front.

  Twenty feet farther down the table Liz Parker stood up and yelled, ‘Oi! Don’t you push that defenceless old woman!’

  ‘And you can fuck off as well!’ Friday bellowed and hurled a rock-hard ship’s biscuit, delighted to have an excuse to let out some of the tension that had been building since she’d found Rachel on the deck five nights earlier. A lusty cheer arose from the breakfasting women.

  What Keegan had done to Rachel had enraged her to the point that she literally had not known what to do with herself. At home, on the streets of London, she might have dealt with someone like Keegan by getting him drunk and beating him senseless, or perhaps have paid someone else to do it. What she wanted to do was kill him. If she did, she would without doubt be found out, thrown in the brig until they reached New South Wales, then tried and hanged. She’d never committed murder in her life, but Keegan’s offence against Rachel was enough to make her start, and it would almost be worth it. By tricking her into visiting his cabin — and Friday wasn’t convinced Rachel was telling the whole truth about how that had happened — he had separated her from those who cared and looked out for her, and that was just such an utterly deliberate, cruel and low thing to do.

  But if she did kill him the whole sordid story would come out — that Matthew Cutler cove knew, after all — and quite aside from her own neck, she’d be risking Rachel’s chances of making even a half-decent life for herself in New South Wales before she even arrived. She was already a convict girl: being tainted by a rape, never mind a murder, would ruin her beyond redemption. No, far better to keep the whole thing quiet.

  Which was why they weren’t going to report the attack to the captain. There was another reason, too: there wouldn’t be any point. Because Rachel was a convict, Holland would assume she’d been whoring, and everyone knew it was impossible to rape a whore. Rachel would be punished and Keegan would simply get away with it. As well, it would put an end to any future business transactions after dark: Holland would have them well and truly locked in from sundown to sun-up, and the little enterprise Amos Furniss and Bella Jackson had going would be closed down. Bella, being the bitch she was, would no doubt take this out on Rachel, who would suffer even further for something that hadn’t been of her making.