Convictions (5 page)

As Jennie slid down to the floor, her feet flew out from under her on the slimy straw. She landed on her knees. Grabbing a berth post, she righted herself, just in time to see Sarah heading down the passageway to assist a sick pregnant woman with two small ailing daughters in tow.

Weakly clinging to the edge of the berth, Jennie rubbed her sore wrists and scratched her legs where insects had bitten them. She heard the chaos dimly, becoming lost in a daze behind half-closed eyes. Swallowing hard behind a hand over her nose and mouth, Jennie swayed with the ship’s movement. She was thankful the seasickness had spared her so far.

The guards led the first half of the prisoners onto the top deck. Jennie tried to push forward, hoping to be included, but bony hands pulled her back.

“Please,” she begged. The reeking confines of the hull were closing in on her. “I must get out.”

“So must we all.” The hand clamped on her shoulder tightened.

Jennie looked around to find Lizzie glaring at her. Now that she could see her close up, Jennie guessed the dishevelled blonde woman must be older, at least thirty. Lizzie’s deep blue eyes were lifeless and wary. She looked frail in a blowsy shift that hung off her skinny, tall frame, but her hands were strong.

“Bide your turn like the rest of us,” snapped a pockmarked woman with a haughty, mean look. She had to be Fanny. She was old too, like Lizzie. Her eyes bored into Jennie.

Frantically Jennie looked for another way out. But there was none. Then she caught sight of Alice, immobile on her berth.

“Alice,” Jennie called. The young girl didn’t stir.

More sharply, Jennie called, “Alice!” Was the child dead?

Jennie climbed up and touched her shoulder. Alice turned her white face slowly toward Jennie.

“Are you ailing?” Jennie asked, relieved.

Tears trickled down Alice’s face. “Not in the way you mean,” she said. “I just want to go home.”

Jennie crawled up beside her as Alice cried quietly.

“We must be brave together,” Jennie said.

“Mam always said God never gives a body more than they can bear, but I think He made a mistake this time.”

Jennie held her close. “We’ll just have to look out for one another then.”

“We will?” Alice looked trustingly into Jennie’s eyes. “You mean I might be of help to you?”

“Yes. I’m afraid too, and it helps me to talk with you,” said Jennie, knowing in her heart that this was true. She also knew that Alice was so much younger, and she must set an example as the older of them, just as she had done for her own sisters. A little ache caught in her throat at the thought of Ann and Beth at home without her.

“I’ll be all right now. I’ll try to be brave.”

“I’m so glad,” said Jennie. She gave Alice a reassuring hug and descended once again.

As she returned to her berth section, two women arrived with rags and a bucket to swab the straw mattresses and clean the floors. Jennie moved across the passageway until they were done, grateful she’d escaped the disgusting duty.

From down the passageway, she watched Flo and Gladys support one another as they staggered their way back. Flo’s hair hung in damp strings down the sides of her strained face. Her short body wobbled next to Gladys’ tall, mannish one.

As they neared, Gladys’ legs visibly trembled. She could barely climb up to the top berth again without Flo’s assistance. Having first to heave their washed straw pallets onto the other side, so they had somewhere dry to lie, hampered them more.

When Gladys almost fell climbing up, Jennie gave her bottom a shove, then jerked her hands back. She’d never before put her hands on someone’s body. When Flo wavered in her ascent, Jennie had no choice but to push her up as well. She felt the woman’s bony bottom beneath her dress.

“Pssst.” A slovenly, grey-haired woman lying in the next bottom berth motioned to Jennie.

Jennie took a couple of steps toward her.

“Be a luv and bring a swig of brandy for old Dottie, before I takes me last breath.” She leaned up on one shaky elbow, staring at Jennie with piercing eyes.

So this was Dottie. Her dress was in rags, twisted around her with a rip down one side from her knee to her ankle. Several of Dottie’s front teeth were missing and the rest were black.

Jennie stared at Dottie’s alarmingly red face before shaking her head and whispering, “You know there’s nowhere to get anything to tipple here.”

Dottie yelled, “Bloody listen to your elders! It’s me dying wish!”

“You’re not dying, only sick.” Jennie turned away quickly.

Dottie belched and flung a stream of curses at Jennie.

In her haste to get back to her berth, Jennie almost bumped into Lizzie.

“Make way,” Lizzie said. She lurched past to someone’s side below her own berth.

Jennie watched Lizzie brush back tendrils of raven-black hair from the woman’s flushed face. So Lizzie had a kind streak too.

“How are you Mary
Roberts?”
asked Lizzie.

Jennie heard Mary groan and leaned a little closer to watch the pair.

“I’ll waste away to nothin’ like some skinny nag. And then where will I be if the toffs aren’t attracted to me, and I lose my career?” Feebly, she attempted to tuck her stray hair back into the severe bun drawn tautly off her forehead.

Jennie wondered how the older woman could even think she was attractive. Bags hung under her drooping cow eyes, and her jowls were flabby.

“Don’t you worry none, Mary. You won’t end up looking skinny as me.” Lizzie ran the hem of her dress over her friend’s moist forehead. “You’ll be up and vexing me in no time.”

“Hmmff,” said Mary.

“The seasickness will be gone in a few days,” Lizzie said quietly and bent over her again. “We’ll all be right as rain.”

Jennie hoped Lizzie was right.

“How did you become such a know-all?” Mary gave Lizzie a weak puzzled look.

As Jennie leaned a little closer to the pair, she saw sudden dawning light Mary’s face.

“You was transported
before
, wasn’t you!” she declared.

Lizzie bristled and looked down. “Not exactly
me
, like,” she mumbled.

“Used one of them fake names, maybe?” Mary guessed.

Jennie gasped.

Lizzie stood and whirled around to face Jennie.

“You keep your hole shut.” She pushed her hands hard against Jennie’s shoulders, backing her against the berth so fast that her head snapped back.

Jennie nodded mutely.

“Now, now, Lizzie,” Mary said. “You’ve frightened her enough. She’ll keep her tongue where it belongs. ’Sides, what good would knowing do her? That’s the past, all over and done with, and where we’re going no one cares.”

What was Lizzie’s name before, and what did she do?
Jennie wondered.
More importantly, how did she manage to get home again and back into this predicament?
Jennie decided it would be best to stay out of Lizzie’s way, in any case.

She pressed down the passageway through bodies heading back and forth, amid the cloying stench of sickness. She queued to use the privy, but when her turn came, she stared in dismay. Vomit splattered the floor and speckled the walls. The cramped compartment with the narrow filthy board across the front contained only an almost-filled slimy bucket. Jennie lifted her dress and crouched, with one hand over her nose and mouth. But the lack of privacy from the other women and the warders prevented her from relieving herself.

“Pee or get off of the pot, why don’t you?” some woman yelled, stamping her feet.

Jennie’s face flamed.

“Hang onto your knickers,” directed a lilting voice that sounded Irish. “You’re only making it harder for the lass. Give her time to do her business.”

Jennie peered at the line of waiting women, but she couldn’t see who had spoken.

“Be calm,” the voice soothed. “Think about something pleasant like when you
were a young child snuggling on your mum’s lap. Or think about drinking warm milk.”

Jennie took a deep breath and let her skirt down a little more over her knees, but not too far, in case the hem dragged in the sopping mess on the floor. She thought about the soothing voice of her mother when she was little, cuddling her and giving her warm milk to drink before tucking her into bed at night.

Jennie’s cheeks burned with embarrassment as her bladder emptied, hissing against the side of the pail. Arising and drawing her knickers up in haste, she pushed by the other women in the queue and past the smirking guards, wanting to get as far away from them as possible.

“Wait for me.” The calm voice was at her side.

Jennie glanced up and saw a young woman with a smattering of freckles on her face. She had a wide smile with one missing tooth and a head of curly, red hair that bushed out in all directions.

“You’re Ir..Irish, aren’t you?” stuttered Jennie. She took a step backwards. All her life she’d been told the Irish were no-good, filthy alcoholics and was warned to stay away from them.

“Aye, that I am. Katelyn McDonnell, originally from County Cork,” she introduced herself. “I go by Kate. And you must be Jennie, the stealer of stale oats.” She gave a little smile.

“You heard?”

Besides being ashamed, Jennie didn’t want to get too close to what she had been told were Irish heathens. She wasn’t even sure what that meant. Kate didn’t seem any dirtier than anyone else, and she certainly hadn’t been drinking.

“I have to get some fresh air.” Jennie turned away abruptly. She had enough trouble, without being associated with someone Irish.

Jennie saw a swift look of hurt on Kate’s face, just before a small, spindly woman hurrying toward the bunks bowled into Jennie. The woman’s clothes were smudged and crumpled. The mousey-haired woman talked to herself in a piercing voice. “Da’ will be rolling in his grave at what’s become of me. The Lord preserve us.”

“Iris.” Kate kept her voice low. “She’s a bit daft a times, but she’s harmless – only a right religious nutter.”

Jennie frowned. Wasn’t Kate a strong Catholic, being Irish and all? “You speak as if you have turned away from your religious beliefs.”

“Well, I certainly don’t have anything to recommend God to me,” said Kate. She shook her head. “After all the praying I’ve done over the years, asking Him to keep me and my family from suffering, fat lot of good it did. My Liam is out of work half the time, and the rest of the family is starving. And look where praying has got me! God is certainly not on my side.”

Jennie’s mind whirled in confusion. Kate’s circumstances seemed to be the same as her own. She even felt the same about being let down by God.

Before she could say anything, Kate’s voice dropped a notch, and she added, “And being Irish is the worst of it. In the eyes of people like you, we’re nothing but trash.” Her eyes brimmed with tears and she turned away.

Jennie watched helplessly as Kate skirted around the women swabbing the deck floor. Iris’s shrill voice carried over the ripple of nattering and hurried footsteps along the passageway. Jennie’s thoughts and emotions clashed, swinging from embarrassment
and disbelief to surprise and wonder. What did people think was wrong with the Irish? Kate seemed normal to her, even nicer than most of the women she’d met so far, besides Sarah.

“Move!” Meadows bellowed from partway down the ladder, then disappeared upwards again.

Jennie moved tight against the berths. The women at the bottom of the ladder cleared a path as the first group of convicts descended and filed back to their bunks. Some still retched and lunged for the privies. Once the second group were signalled to proceed, Jennie clambered up the narrow ladder, eager for her first breath of fresh air.

When at last she staggered on deck, she blinked in the bright sunlight. The salty air brought with it a rush of excitement, and she felt light with relief.

Overhead, a seagull gave a piercing call and wheeled off starboard. Water lapped against the hull. The wind whistled through the rigging and the timbers creaked with each roll. Loose strands of Jennie’s hair lifted, and the cool breeze caressed her face. Temporary escape from the bowels of the ship felt good. The compression weighing upon her chest eased.

Jennie swivelled around, taking it all in. The sunlight over the water reminded her of a ferry ride across the River Mersey she’d taken with her father one splendid summer day. The sunlight glinting on the water was like an array of sparkling jewels.

“Precious gems for my precious girl,” her father had said, laughing and pretending to gather them up for her.

Abruptly, a rough hand grabbed Jennie’s arm and swung her about. She found herself face to face with Red Bull, staring into eyes like those of a dead fish. He clamped shackles on both of her ankles. Were they always to be chained, even though the ship was out at sea, and there was no way for them to escape?

There was a sudden burst of wind, and the shipped heaved. A wave of nausea rolled up her throat. She swallowed hard.

“Keep your eyes fixed on the horizon or visible land and you won’t be sick.” Sarah’s welcome figure came up beside her.