A World Apart (16 page)

‘Much good it'll do ye if ye just sits on it, love,' Poll Robinson said to Eliza one night as she lurched back to her berth. ‘Here's a plum for thee, child. I've had plums, aye, and brandy and gold, just for half an hour round the barrel. And more's there where that came from, lass.' She eyed Eliza's slender body and golden curls. ‘Ye don't know how those guards lust after ye, child. They call thee the White Rosebud.' At the sound of this exchange, Susannah snapped a reply from her sickbed.

‘Look at yon Poll, child,' she addressed Eliza. ‘Wouldst have thyself look like her, and worse, think like her? Save thyself, Eliza, like the sweet child I know thee be.'

The conversation was an omen. A few evenings later, Eliza climbed to the deck to fetch a drink of water for herself. The night was warm to the point of discomfort.

‘Well, if it ain't my little Rosebud.' Eliza turned to meet the leering face of Jake Cowper.

‘Jake thinks he's been sent by the angel Gabriel as a gift to women,' Poll had said. ‘He's put his hands on half the women on this ship already. And he won't take no for an answer. He's like a bull eyeing a meadow of cows.'

Jake's voice was husky with lust. Eliza read his face and turned her shackled feet to flee. But not fast enough. Jake clasped her round the waist, pushed his spiky black beard into her face.

‘Give old Jake a little kiss, lass. T'will make the next move more fun for ye.' Eliza struggled. He locked his arms round her, squeezing her harder the more she resisted. Then he wrapped a leg behind hers and pushed her to the deck. As he heaved his body to cover hers, he pinioned her with his arm and hip. In the dark, she sensed that he undid his belt buckle.

‘A little struggle will make it sweeter for ye, child. I'll warrant I'll be your first. And good it'll be for ye. Jake the Yard Long Snake, I'm called. Ye'll count y'self lucky it were Jake as took you first.'

Eliza must think quickly. She kissed him on the lips as he lay over her, forcing her breath out of her. ‘Ah. So my little wench can't wait,' he gloated.

‘Wait, Jake. I have the curse. I'll take off my rags. I'll be quick.' He stood. Eliza fussed with the skirt of her smock. Then, as the ship lurched, she dived past him, swung onto the companionway, and fell down the steps onto the deck below.

‘She-devil! I'll have thee yet! Just wait.' Jake called down at her. As she tripped, she felt the irons cut her leg. In the dark, she wiped a finger over her ankle, felt the wet, and tasted it. It was warm blood — a cheap price to pay to for her escape. She limped to her berth, and smothered her sobs in her sleeve. The other convicts would have made great sport of it if they'd heard her. She fingered the palm of her hand to remind herself of Harry's naïve blood oath one more time, and fell asleep in the small hours.

A few days later, Susannah confided in her.

‘I'm with child, lass. That's why I been so sick. It's the gift I got from my gentleman. Cursed be the men that woo silly women, then use them and fling them onto the street like filth.'

Eliza knew that Susannah's sickness was likely to spin into a vicious circle. She must have better food and care if the baby were to survive to full term. Each day that Susannah felt poorly, Eliza bought her food. The biscuits, the pease and an occasional chunk of salt beef were at best tasteless, and Susannah rarely ate a healthy portion. Knowing the risk she invited, Eliza one day told a warder about Susannah's poor health. The man was a decent fellow, and spoke to the ship's surgeon. He gave Eliza the cup of wine specially prescribed for the sick. She brought it to Susannah during their mess's rostered time on deck. As the languid woman drank it, she changed magically. Her voice lifted and she stood unaided.

‘Lead me to the deck, lass,' she ordered. Clearly, she felt no pain from her irons. She had stood at the barrel only minutes when a sailor passed. ‘Hello, sailor boy,' she called. ‘Let's me and thee have a little drink.'

‘Aye, that we will,' said the sailor, grinning. ‘Hold hard for the twinkling of an eye, lass.' He vanished and quickly reappeared with a half bottle of brandy. ‘A kiss will get the cork out, lass,' he said. She kissed him with more spirit than Eliza had seen in Susannah since she had denounced men back in the Dorset cells. ‘Here, little lass. Take thy turn.' He thrust the bottle at Eliza.

‘No, thank you sir. I don't like brandy, sir,' she said, wishing she was elsewhere. The sailor ignored her. He was hugging Susannah with the hand that held the bottle, and reaching beneath her skirts with the other. Eliza could see that his attention was elsewhere. She left quietly, picking up her chain and skipping back to her berth in the darkness. A long time later, Susannah joined her messmates, singing with drunken detachment.

‘A sovereign for my baby! A sovereign for my baby! And I'll keep it where no thieving convict whores will get it.'

As the days followed one on another like a line of cattle strolling to the dairy for milking, Susannah seemed to return to health. Kate Packham was not so blessed. Martha and Kate, two sisters, had been sentenced for stealing bolts of cloth. They never stopped complaining about the ship, their messmates, the company, and their aches and pains. They ate their rations with relish enough, and scavenged for scraps left by anyone who might be feeling poorly at the time. A week-long storm brought more seasickness. This time, some of the women were slower to recover. Long after the ship sailed into quieter waters, they lay in their berths. Their muscles began to waste to the point where the effort of rising was too great. One who suffered thus was Kate. Martha scolded her ceaselessly.

‘Get thee on thy feet, shiftless wench! Thy lazy tricks will be the death of thee! Get thee up and walk! Wouldst have thy legs waste away?' In vain, Martha co-opted Eliza and Susannah to help drag Kate from her berth, urge her to walk during the rostered exercise periods. She would merely weep and fall to the ground. Once they dragged her as far as the deck.

‘Take me back, take me back,' she whimpered. ‘The cold will kill me.' Her convulsive shivering gave strength to her plea. Her continued occupancy of the damp berth bred lice. She took to scratching herself without ceasing. Her berth mates took her to task, as much out of pity as to rid themselves of a too-close source of breeding lice. The stubborn woman resisted them, though she was wasting piteously. Her scalp and body bled as she scraped herself raw. Sores spread over her flaking skin.

Eliza examined her own body daily, first with some pretence at privacy, then ignoring her messmates as she scrutinised every inch of her skin. She found a sailor who for no more than a kind word would dip a pail of water from the sea, and she washed her hair in the salt water whenever she could. It became matted and stiff. No matter, it looked no worse than her comrades' greasy locks. Many of the women, who had spent years in prison or on the streets, smiled at her antics.

‘Lady Purity will catch cold from the salt water,' they joked. ‘She'll die from too much washing.' Eliza persisted, and was to find she attracted no lice during the entire voyage. Kate began to cough, particularly at night. At first, she was but one more voice in the nightly chorus. Then it seemed as though she never stopped. The warders made no exception to the strict rationing of blankets and clothing, though they did issue the occasional measure of wine allowed the sick. Kate sank lower. From time to time, she lost her lucidity.

‘I wonder there's nourishment enough for a louse there,' Susannah observed as she eyed Kate's wasting body. The sick woman's coughing fits had lately grown so severe as to add incontinence to the burdens those sleeping below her must endure.

‘God knows, but we don't need no showers of golden rain on top of all the other bounties He sends us,' Susannah said. But it was she who ordered the others to take turns in giving up their blankets so that Kate could be kept warm. One night, the sick woman's breathing took on the laboured gasp of one who is close to death. She lasted until the afternoon of the next day, when she exhaled a rasping breath, then lay still. Next day, her stiff corpse was dropped over the side after a token ceremony. It had not been the first death on the ship. Certainly there would be others. That night, as Eliza lay in her berth, she heard Kate's sister Martha sobbing.

‘She weren't a bad girl. She loved her father and her mother. If I live to land in Botany Bay, I'll have to send word to my poor old mother. And that will kill her.'

The ship took on provisions at The Cape. This created a dash of excitement for the women, for whom monotony had become the biggest burden of all. In days that sojourn was over, and the ship began the long eastward run to Botany Bay. For a few weeks the sailors made free with the money and liquor and delicacies they had acquired at The Cape, and this flowed down to the women.

Eliza watched it all, and set her mind on preserving her health as best she could until the end of the journey. She strengthened the few friendships she had made, and resolved to keep out of harm's way. If she earned a reputation as a recluse, she didn't care. The bond with Susannah waxed stronger each day. Susannah was Eliza's opposite in so many ways — loud where Eliza was quiet, aggressive where Eliza was retiring, confident where Eliza was introspective and subdued. But she had become a mother to the silent adolescent. Eliza saw that Susannah wanted to mother someone, and God knew Eliza needed the strength of a woman who was older, wiser, and schooled in the ways of the world as they applied to the convict transport. Their friendship flourished because it rewarded both parties.

‘You do well to stay away from the men, child,' Susannah said. ‘I use them when it suits me. It's about time I had the boot on my foot. Men's used me since I were twelve years old. I had a child when I was but thirteen, though the poor mite was too small and sickly to live.' Eliza marvelled again at her friend's resilience. ‘Men are simple creatures; leastwise the poor sailors are,' Susannah said. ‘And at times like this, a woman uses them when she can.' Sometimes she gave Eliza little gifts she had earned from her liaisons — a sweetmeat, an orange — but she was single-minded about building up a fund of money. ‘Money will talk in Botany Bay. You see if I'm right. And I mean to provide for this child. God knows I failed the others. This one will be mine. Mine to keep, mine to love, mine to care for me in my old age.'

The ship sailed through southern latitudes to catch the Roaring Forties, the reliable westerly winds which would speed the ship eastward across the Great Australian Bight. All on board were content to endure the cold, the howling winds and the heavy rolling of the old ship. They knew that every lurch of the creaking hull brought them nearer to Botany Bay and dry land.

When the sailors told the convicts that Botany Bay would be sighted within the week, excitement frothed like fermenting ale. Women who had neglected their looks for months began to scrub their faces, wash their bodies, clean their fingernails. Clothes were washed and mended, and hair cut and curled where the means came to hand — commonly the illicit loan of a pair of scissors by a sailor. The ship turned northwards after keeping an easterly heading for weeks, and took on a different personality. The weather grew sunny and warm, though not to the degree of the oppressive heat of the tropics, when several lives had been lost to fever. Land could be seen to the west — flat-topped hills with occasional peaks. Some said they saw the smoke of the savages' fires, and at night, the pinpoints of firelight were there for all to see.

‘Roasting some poor Englishman, I'll be bound,' a warder said. Some believed him.

As if in spite, the weather suddenly turned foul. The wind bore down from the north-east in great gusts which heaved the ship onto its side. It was impossible to walk on deck. The captain bore out to the open sea to avoid being driven onshore. A day and a night passed, with the ship creaking in pain at every big sea. When a snap as loud as a gunshot was heard, followed by a grinding crash, it ignited panic below decks like a match laid to powder.

‘The mainmast is gone. We're at the mercy of the wind. God help us!' a sailor told Eliza's mess. At dusk, the captain ordered all on deck. Leg-irons were removed. Land was frighteningly close — vertical cliffs could be seen not a mile away, white with the spray of huge breakers. The waves thundering against the cliffs injected a new, awful sound into the air, doubly frightening to passengers who had heard only the swash of the sea for weeks. Even at that distance from the shore, it was clear that the waves dwarfed the ship. They rolled onto the rocks and buried them in showers of spray that were swept up and over the cliffs by the tearing wind. Everyone on board weighed their chances of surviving the impact against those dreadful cliffs. Eliza had a word to Susannah in private.

‘If the ship crashes onto the cliffs, every soul will be smashed onto the rocks. Like rats thrown against a wall by the tail. But the two of us can save ourselves.'

‘What?' Susannah had come to respect her young friend's insights.

‘The punishment box.' Every woman on board had seen the box and dreaded it. The structure was a yard square at the base, and a yard and a half high, built of stout slats spaced to allow warder to look in and prisoner to see out. It was used to tame recalcitrant prisoners when no other measure would serve. A prisoner would be locked in the box for a day or two, until the cramp and the cold subdued her.

‘It's been built strong. It will be our best chance to withstand the crash,' Eliza urged. ‘And it will float. At least we'll be fastened to something that will buoy us up. ‘When it seems as if all is lost, we'll go there and lock ourselves inside it.'

‘I don't know, dear,' Susannah said. ‘It could be a terrible death, trapped inside like a cat set for drowning.'

‘It's the least of all evils,' Eliza said. ‘I've thought about it carefully. The box will be smashed against the rocks, and it will break, but the breaking will take the force of the crash. Better the box breaks than our bones.' Finally Susannah agreed. After dark, they struggled onto the deck and hid themselves in the cramped box.