‘How long does this stage last?’ I asked.
‘We shall know the worst of it by the end of the week.’
By now we had rounded Broadstairs and Margate and were sailing up to the Thames estuary. The men who had not been inoculated were released from their cabin. No one else had contracted the disease.
Evison announced we would head for Chatham where the ship would be held in quarantine for several weeks until the authorities were sure the outbreak had run its course. What should have been a joyous homecoming was turning into a nightmare.
I passed the girls’ room from time to time, and would pause outside, but never for long because there was a sickly sweet stench about it. I knew this was characteristic of the illness. I wanted to call Bel’s name, but feared I would wake her from her rest. If she was asleep, then I wanted her to remain undisturbed.
As we approached our mooring downriver from Chatham dockyards, Evison summoned Richard and me to his cabin. He looked solemn and I knew he had grave news. Who would it be, Bel, Lizzie or both of them?
‘I’m sorry to tell you that Miss Borrow …’ I didn’t hear the rest. I was just so relieved it wasn’t Bel. Then I felt bad, for Lizzie was my friend too. Richard looked shocked to the core.
I started to hear again some of what the Captain was saying: ‘… her passing was a blessing …’ ‘suffered terribly and had already lost her sight’ ‘affected far worse than Miss Sparke’.
‘And how is Miss Sparke?’ I asked.
‘Mrs Evison says the worst is over. I can tell you now she seems to have fought the disease and suffered far less from the blistering. We’re hoping she’ll be back on her feet in a couple of weeks.’
I put a consoling arm around Richard. We walked out of the Captain’s cabin and stared blankly over the side of the ship as the fields and mudflats of Kent slowly drifted by. This was home, up close enough to see people in hailing distance on the river bank, cows, sheep, horses and carts, riverside houses and taverns. I should have been excited, but I just felt empty.
‘She wouldn’t have wanted to be blind and disfigured,’ Richard said. ‘She must have been admired for her beauty since she was a little girl. She spent her whole life entering rooms and houses and turning heads in admiration. It would have grieved her to look like that.
‘I didn’t really think she’d come back to Boston with me. But I had a faint hope. I would have asked her, right at the very end of the voyage. Poor Lizzie. What a terrible way to die …’
I had not seen him cry since the day we were sentenced to hang at Copenhagen and now tears streamed down his face. We had always talked about his attraction to Lizzie in a light-hearted way. His feeling was deeper than that. I too shed a tear at that moment. For my friend Lizzie and for Richard. Lizzie was the first girl he had fallen for. Who could have guessed it would end like this?
Lizzie was given a quiet funeral, with just Richard and myself and the Captain and his wife present. ‘I don’t want the whole crew gathered close round. There’s still a small chance that others may develop the disease.’
Her body was wrapped in canvas, weighed down with three cannon balls, and set over the rail just as the sun reached its highest point in the sky. ‘Beautiful day for a picnic,’ she would probably have said. It was too. One of those lovely September days, just before autumn comes to take the warmth from the sun.
I kept thinking of the first time I saw her – two years ago as a passenger on the Euphrates, sailing out to New South Wales. She had this fresh beauty about her and was bursting with a zest for life. But now the world continued to turn and she was no longer there.
‘Can I visit Bel?’ I asked. I suddenly felt a great need to see her. She’d be very upset. She was shrewd enough to know how useful Lizzie was to her, but she had also been her best friend.
‘You’ll have to wait,’ said Evison. ‘Just be grateful she’s still alive. You can write her a letter. She’s probably strong enough to read it now.’
* * *
The ship settled into its quarantine routine. Evison insisted on running the same watches and kept the crew busy cleaning and repairing the Orion. The men grew bored and resentful, and I longed for the day when I could be rid of them.
Some of them took to gambling, despite the fact that the Captain had always forbidden it. When one man was injured in a knife fight over a gambling debt, Evison had the perpetrator flogged. It was a low point of the voyage, having the crew assemble to witness punishment on a grey autumn day, with a biting wind whistling in over the estuary. There was no more gambling after that.
A week later, I was summoned to see Bel. ‘Don’t touch her, don’t get too close to her, but you can sit at her bedside,’ said Mrs Evison. ‘Come after eight bells on the afternoon watch.’
I feared what I would find almost as much as I had feared battle or storm. As I approached the cabin, I felt I was in a bad dream.
I knocked and a weak voice croaked, ‘Come in, Sam.’
There she was, her face white and gaunt and her body all bones beneath the sheets. There were still some livid spots on her face but they were healing and the scabs had fallen off. Mrs Evison had done a fine job cleaning the room for visitors, but the sickly sweet stench of smallpox still hung in the air.
She gave me a weak smile. ‘Don’t come close, Sam, don’t risk your life.’
I told her I had been inoculated. She became terribly angry. ‘My stupid, stupid parents. If only they had sent me … it wouldn’t have cost them much, less than a couple of bottles of port, and I could have been spared all this.’ She began to weep, choking back tears. It seemed to exhaust her.
‘Don’t touch me, Sam,’ she cried. ‘I still hurt all over.’
‘I’ve been lying here these last few days wondering how this could have been avoided. When Lizzie saw the sick people, she said we should go to them at once. I agreed without a second thought. We didn’t think, did we? I can’t blame her for that. But something is bothering me.
‘Did we both get it when we went to help the sick people when they came on board? Or did she get it and give it to me? Or did I get it and give it to her?’
‘Who can tell?’ I said, stuck for something to say. ‘But you’ve been looked after well.’
‘Evison should have kept us apart.’ She was getting angrier. ‘It was wrong to keep us both in our cabin. Maybe I would have just had it, and Lizzie would still be alive. Maybe she would have had it and died anyway, but I would have been spared.’
The effort to talk exhausted her. She stayed silent for a while then tears filled her eyes. She had obviously been brooding in her lonely cabin. Much as I liked the Captain, I could see she had a point.
‘Pass me a mirror, Sam, there’s one in the drawer there.’
‘Leave it ’til later, Bel,’ I said. ‘You look fine – you’re thin and pale, as you would be, and you have some marks on your face, but they’ll fade in no time.’
‘Quick, Sam, quick, I’m begging you.’ She was getting upset again. ‘Mrs Evison won’t let me look. I want you to help me.’
I fetched a small hand mirror and held it in front of her face.
She began to sob.
‘No man will ever want me now.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said.
She would not be consoled. ‘And what am I going to do with Miss Lizzie gone? Who’s going to take me as their maid with these hideous scars … I’ll have to work for some bad-tempered harridan who’ll want a plain maid to make herself look better.’
I came to see her again the next day, but her mood was much the same. She found fault with everything I said and sent me away after a couple of minutes. The next day, I thought she might want to pass the time writing to her parents, so I brought pen, ink and paper. She threw them to the floor, staining the deck and her sheets with the black ink. ‘What am I going to say?’ she wailed. ‘This is what happened because you wouldn’t have me treated! Go away, Sam Witchall, and don’t come bothering me with stupid i
deas.’
I left it for a week. I knew people behaved badly when they were tormented by grief and anger. But when I returned she wouldn’t see me.
On 15th November, 1803, we sailed into London. It loomed in the distance – the great curving dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, all those spires, and a huge mass of buildings and smoke – like a great shadow cast over the earth. This was a journey I had been longing to make since I first went to sea. I had heard so much about the city from my fellow sailors and now I was about to see it for myself.
By the time we reached the grand palaces and buildings of Greenwich, the river bank was crowded with houses. Richard had kept to himself in the days following the funeral, but arriving here seemed to perk him up. He pointed up at the splendid observatory atop the hill overlooking the river. On its roof was a large red ball mounted on a long pole. ‘That gets hoisted up and dropped every day at twelve o’clock sharp,’ he told me. ‘All the ships in London set their chronometers by it.’
We sailed into the Pool of London, past the turn in the river at Limehouse Reach. The city looked like some vast human hive. Up in the topsails I could see how enormous it was and I was eager to walk those streets. On the east side of the river we passed a gigantic building that receded almost as far as the eye could see. ‘That’ll be the warehouses for the new West India Docks,’ said Garrick. ‘They were buildin’ that when I sailed out of here. They say it’s the biggest buildin’ in the world.’
We moored along a crowded quayside close to London Bridge. The Captain, it was whispered with a knowing smirk, knew exactly which dockside officials would be open to a bribe. They would turn a blind eye to his lack of a trading licence for his East India goods.
Evison paid us off. ‘You can sail with me any time, Witchall. You too, Buckley. You’ve been a credit to the ship.’ He wrote down his London address and told us to come and visit him if we were looking for work. Then he gave us our wages – over twenty pounds. It seemed like a fortune. ‘Don’t spend it all on drink and doxies,’ said the Captain. ‘And keep it well hidden about your person. Those streets are full of cut-throats and pickpockets. One final task. I want you to deliver Sydney to his new master. I think it would be best for you to take him.’
I was happy to do him that favour. Evison was a good man and I would be proud to sail with him again. I didn’t want anyone else taking Sydney to a strange new place either. I knew he would be confused and frightened by his unfamiliar surroundings.
We said our farewells to Mrs Evison, John Garrick, and the rest of the crew, even William Bedlington. I didn’t want to see most of them again, but I wished them well. After a bad start we had finally learned to rub along with each other. To Garrick, at least, I owed my life. We made small talk about our plans. Most were going to spend a few weeks or months ashore, regaining their strength before they took their life into their hands on another voyage. It was a precarious existence, being a sailor, but there was nothing else to rival its excitement for an ordinary working man.
There was one last farewell to make. I went to Bel’s cabin and knocked on the door.
‘Who is it?’ came a sharp voice.
‘It’s Sam, come to say goodbye.’
‘Goodbye then,’ she said, without even opening the door.
CHAPTER 10
London Calling
We marched down the gangplank both carrying a small bag of possessions. It was precious little to show for our time on the other side of the world. Sydney perched on my shoulder and I felt like a pirate. He wasn’t going to fly away in this strange town – but I had him on a long tether just in case.
‘First things first,’ said Richard, ‘a mutton pie and a pint of ale.’
‘A nice crusty loaf with fresh butter, and thin slices of beef,’ I said.
‘An apple and blackberry pie with custard,’ said Richard. As we strolled along the riverside, we fantasised about all the fresh food we’d find on dry land. ‘Carrots and greens, straight from the fields.’
We sat down in the window of a riverside tavern and I felt a great surge of joy and relief. ‘Here’s to us, Richard, and here’s to sitting here in a London tavern, rather than slaving away on Charlotte Farm for another five years.’ I shuddered to think of how our lives would have turned out if our friend, Midshipman Robert Neville, had not arranged for our pardon.
‘We’ve got letters to write,’ said Richard. ‘Not least to Robert and his father.’
‘I must write home, and so must you,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to go back just yet, I’d like to stay here with you until you return to Boston.’
‘Good,’ said Richard. ‘First we need lodgings. I propose we live like gentlemen for a month or so, and spend some of our money having a wild old time.’
‘Done!’ I said, and we chinked our pint glasses together.
First we had to deliver Sydney to his new owner. Captain Evison had given us directions to Bedford Square, in the district of Bloomsbury. Lord Montague lived in a grand town house there, which we reached after an hour’s brisk walk. I couldn’t believe you could walk for an hour and still be in the middle of all this bustle and mayhem. It took a few minutes to walk from one end of Wroxham to the other.
We rang the bell on the imposing black door to be greeted by a liveried footman. ‘We’ve brought a cockatoo for Lord Montague,’ I explained. The footman looked amused, then baffled, then severe. ‘Be gone, you urchins,’ he said and slammed the door.
We rang again. ‘But we have. It’s from His Excellency Sir Philip Gidley King, the Governor of New South Wales. Please tell Lord Montague we’re here.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ said the footman. ‘But you may hand the creature over to me.’
Sydney flapped and squawked and the man recoiled. ‘He’s quite nervous with people he doesn’t know,’ I said.
I heard a voice behind me. ‘Well here he is at last. What a handsome creature! Show them in, Aldcroft,’ he said to the footman. ‘These tars can tell me all about him.’ It was Lord Montague himself, returning from an afternoon stroll. He had spotted that we were sailors before he had even set eyes on our faces.
We entered the grand hall and were told to sit with Sydney on a plush red sofa close to the foot of a great winding staircase. I undid his tether and had him perch on my arm. Lady Montague was summoned and came at once to admire their new pet.
Lord Montague was cordial, considering our different stations in life. ‘Had a letter from Governor King over the summer, telling me to expect a delivery. Were you in charge of the bird during the voyage?
‘Capital, capital,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Tell me all about him. What does he eat? What does he like to do? Can he talk? I’ve heard these birds are marvellous conversationalists.’
I started to tell him, and the more I talked, the sadder I felt. I hadn’t realised how fond I had become of Sydney.
‘You have to be very careful with him, especially to begin with,’ I concluded. ‘He’s shy with strangers, but he’s affectionate with people who treat him well.’
As I talked, I stroked the top of Sydney’s head. Lord Montague leaned over to him and said, ‘So, I’ll bet you’re missing the sunshine in New South Wales?’
‘He doesn’t actually make conversation, sir,’ I said cheekily. I was feeling light-hearted and this was certainly one occasion when I could make fun of a toff and not face a flogging.
Montague’s manner changed in an instant. ‘I’m not an imbecile, lad.’ Then he softened. He sat next to me on the sofa and beckoned me to hand over the bird. Sydney hopped obligingly from my arm to his.
He put out a hand to stroke Sydney’s head. ‘Don’t peck him, please don’t peck him,’ I thought.
Emboldened, Montague leaned closer and cooed, ‘You are a pretty bird.’ At once the cockatoo nipped him on the nose and soiled his trousers. Montague yelled and recoiled in disgust, frightening Sydney even more. He flew up the grand staircase and settled on the topmost banister.
‘Don’t you dare,’ was the last I heard of that conversation. I hoped Sydney didn’t start chirping out his old war cry ‘Show us yer arse’, at least not until the family had got to know him better.
We spent the rest of the day looking at notices in shop windows for lodgings and found a room in a boarding house close to Covent Garden and the Strand. It was small and expensive, being so close to the middle of things, but clean enough. ‘It’ll do for a couple of days,’ Richard said.
When we’d settled in we wrote our letters. I told my mother and father I had returned safely to England, where I was living, and that I would visit Norfolk soon, but I didn’t say when. I loved my family but our village of Wroxham offered the greatest reason for a boy to go to sea. Life there revolved with the same steady and predictable course as the sails of the windmills that stood around the town.
Rosie was close to there too, on the coast at Yarmouth, Rosie, my childhood sweetheart, who I had told to forget about me when I was transported to New South Wales. Thinking of Rosie made me sad. Having been so attracted to Bel, I knew Rosie was no longer the girl for me. But I still wondered how our life would have worked out together. Me running a village store, and teaching in the local school, she raising our children.
I wrote to Robert Neville too and received a reply by return of post.
Hon. Robert Neville
12 Grosvenor Square
Mayfair
17th November, 1803
Dear Sam and Richard,
How fortunate that your letter should reach me while I am staying in London on leave. I am delighted to hear you are both safe and well. I cannot tell you how pleased I was to hear about your pardon. We must meet at the earliest opportunity. Will you both come for dinner tonight at the family home? My father and mother are both anxious to make your acquaintance.
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