Great Historical Novels (40 page)

Albert says we are travelling north now, along the eastern coastline of Australia, and that we are within a week of Sydney Cove if the wind stays behind us. Sometimes you can see the shadow of land on the horizon, but now the thought of leaving the ship is as daunting as was the thought of boarding it. I am sick of the sight of needlework. We are sewing shirts, now. Before that we made ourselves summer gowns. They are shapeless and ugly, made of cheap brown cotton, but cooler than linsey. The quilt for the Quakers is finished. It is larger than any of the coverlets that were sold in Rio, measuring more than one hundred and twenty inches across its longest side. At its centre is a square of broderie perse that I cut, so carefully, from my precious chintz and arranged in a spray of bright birds and blossoms. My herringbone stitch is now as swift and neat as anyone’s. No doubt I might find work as a needlewoman when I am free, not that I’d want it.

When I am free.

Freedom no longer even haunts my dreams. I am a prisoner, by day and by night. I am so listless that even Manannán has ceased to provoke me. My greatest fear now
is that I might become so miserable that I cease to see colours and patterns altogether.

The quilt is to be presented to the wife of the Governor of New South Wales, who is a great admirer of Elizabeth Fry and prison reform. We hope that she will take responsibility for sending it back to London where it will be presented to the ladies of the Convict Ship Committee. Miss Hayter has agreed that it should be delivered to Antonia Blake, as a representative of the charity, on behalf of all of the women of the
Rajah
. The dedication is complete. Margaret has been working on it from the infirmary. Her cross-stitch (which she says is so perfect because she is always cross) graces the lower, outer border of the quilt. Last night she escaped Mr Donovan for long enough to come and tell me that she has found the perfect hiding place for the negative, and that I mustn’t worry because it is safe. It is peculiar that she should feel it necessary to come and tell me this and as I said to her, I wish she had come to my cabin before now. We both know that it is too risky, though, with Wardell on the prowl. She looked better for taking the air and I think she might finally be growing strong again.

I suppose I must make the effort to rise. There has been more noise than usual on the lower deck this morning; perhaps a storm is brewing. A storm would be welcome, to interrupt the boredom and lethargy of these long, still days. 

Herringbone

A foreign vessel was the cause of the commotion on deck, visible in the distance off to the north. It was odd to see an interruption to the endless, vacant miles of ocean. Rhia thought no more about it until she saw it again from the quarterdeck after breakfast. The ship drew closer through the morning until its outline was distinguishable. It was a junk.

‘Chinese,’ said Agnes, knowingly. ‘Seen one on the Thames.’

The wind dropped and the vessel barely drew nearer throughout the day.

In the afternoon, as Rhia was preparing to leave Mr Reeve, there was shouting and the pounding of feet outside. A moment later the steward, James, opened the door. ‘Captain says everyone’s to stay in their cabins.’

Mr Reeve jumped like a frightened rabbit and bumped his head on a shelf. ‘Whatever’s going on?’

‘Chinamen’, said James. ‘Might be pirates. They probably think we’re carrying opium or sterling.’

‘
Pirates!
But why would they think that?’ asked Mr Reeve, his voice close to a squeak.

The steward looked at Mr Reeve as though he’d no clue about anything, which was a fair assessment. ‘Well, we’re this side of India and we’re a barque, sir, and we’re due north. We could be on our way to Lintin Island.’

Mr Reeve was pale to his gills. ‘Then they’ll realise they are
mistaken soon enough,’ he said without much confidence. Rhia couldn’t help feeling a small thrill. Perhaps they’d not make it to Sydney Cove after all! Could it be worse to be a prisoner of a pirate than of the Crown?

‘Might be too late by then,’ said the steward dramatically, and hastened away to do whatever an officer’s servant does to defend his ship against Chinese pirates.

Being confined indefinitely with the botanist was out of the question. ‘I think it would be best if I went below with the others,’ Rhia said as soon as the steward left.

‘I think you should stay. It might be dangerous, Mahoney.’ He buttoned his frayed tweed waistcoat in spite of the heat, as though it might afford him some protection. He didn’t want to be on his own.

‘I think it would be best if I went,’ she said, already halfway out the door. She had no intention of going below. She crept along the dark passageways that Albert had shown her, until she was at the cranny ’tween decks. There was a view of the prow part of the main deck through the scuttle in the timberwork. Orders were shouted down the line from the captain to the ship’s boys. On the gun deck at the prow, half a dozen barrels of black steel were levelled at the approaching ship – its red sails now easily distinguishable. Rhia had seen plenty of these bamboo-masted ships in the port of Dublin, trading porcelain and figured silk. Orders continued to be shouted down the line of barefoot sailors. Cutlasses and pistols had appeared, stuck into belts and cummerbunds. To all appearances, the crew were expecting trouble.

‘Well, well, it’s Mahoney, turned ship’s lookout.’ Rhia jumped. It was Albert. ‘Shouldn’t you be on deck?’ she whispered.

He shrugged. ‘I’m short-sighted, so it’s no good my trying to make a mark with a pistol. I’ll fight if they come on board.’
Albert patted his belt, and she saw his new cutlass glinting there. ‘Give us a look through the scuttle,’ he said.

Rhia stepped aside so he could see the deck.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, suddenly feeling less certain about being the prisoner of pirates. ‘What would they want with a ship of prisoners?’

‘They won’t know it’s a prison ship. They’ll be after bounty. There’s a busy shipping route between Calcutta, Canton and Sydney. Sometimes silver goes through Sydney before it gets to Calcutta, if it’s a clipper or a barque carrying rice or tea or whatever. There’s all manner of dealing goes on in the open sea.’

‘You mean criminal dealings?’

Albert grinned. He was doing his best to look brave, but she could see he was worried. ‘Most traders run rackets of some kind or other – even if it’s only not paying all their port taxes.’ He turned his attention back to the scuttle.

‘What’s happening?’

‘You don’t have to whisper – no one can hear us. The cook’s on deck and he’s talking to one of the Chinamen who’s come up to the side in a rowing boat.’

‘What’s he saying?’

‘I don’t know, he’s talking Chinaman.’ Albert was silent for a long moment.

Rhia remembered something she’d been wanting to ask him. ‘Albert?’

‘Mm.’

‘Do you know what the Cook’s tattoo means?’

‘I asked him myself,’ Albert said after another long silence. He would not take his eye from the scuttle.

‘And?’

‘He used to be a silversmith and he says it’s to remind him that there’s more to life than a stinking galley.’

‘But what does the symbol mean?’

‘Silver.’

‘What’s happening now?’

‘If ye’d stop asking me questions I might be able to— ah.’

‘What!’ Rhia wanted to push him out of the way so she could see for herself.

‘They’ve brought the body up on deck. That’s the one thing that’ll ward ’em off. It’s a bad omen to any seaman, English or Chinaman, if a woman dies on a ship. Now there’s two Chinamen on deck and the bosun has his hand on his pistol. They’re looking at the body. Aye, that’s done it, they can’t get off our deck fast enough now!’

Cailleach had been busy. ‘A woman? Who has died?’

Albert looked at her strangely, and Rhia knew the answer before he told her.

‘Dickson,’ he said. ‘Two days ago.’

Margaret.

The afternoon dragged, and so did supper in the orlop. Everyone knew now, and the mood was dark. Just as Rhia was wondering if they would be allowed to attend Margaret’s burial, a warden came below and herded them all up the ladder for an ‘evening service’.

The sea was as smooth as silk and there was barely a wisp of wind. It was still baking hot, even with the sun sinking into the dark water. Reverend Boswell stood at the prow, his hair damp beneath his flat preacher’s hat. His congregation was divided into three parts. The women, barefoot in their black aprons and cloth caps, stood at the back with their heads bent. This deference owed as much to the final piercing rays of the sun as to the solemnity of the occasion. The passengers, half a dozen ladies and the same number of sweating husbands in Sunday
broadcloth, were as far away from them as they could be. The crew comprised another huddle, restless and resentful. The Lord was encroaching on their domain. Behind them on the deck was a long, body-shaped cylinder of sailcloth.

Boswell mopped his brow. ‘Lord have mercy on the soul of the sinner Margaret Dickson.’ A gust of wind lifted up his hat and spun it away into the silken sea. For a moment the preacher looked too startled to speak, but he recovered, and shot a withering look at the women. The laughter was contagious and no one was attempting to hide it. Margaret clearly didn’t take kindly to being called a sinner.

Her body had been sewn into the sailcloth and was now raised onto the shoulders of four sailors. A plank of wood rested on the deck rail, held in place by four more. Margaret was laid on it. Her bier was tilted until she spun into the sea like a spent cocoon. She disappeared instantly into Manannán’s vault.

III

Wool

The gum has no shade,

And the wattle no fruit;

The parrot don’t warble

In trolls like the flute;

The cockatoo cooeth

Not much like a dove,

Yet fear not to ride

To my station my love.

Four hundred miles off

Is the goal of our way,

It is done in a week

At but sixty a day.

The plains are all dusty,

The creeks are all dried,

’Tis the fairest of weather

To bring home my bride.

The blue vault of heaven

Shall curtain thy form,

One side of the Gum tree

The moonbeam must warm;

The whizzing mosquito

Shall dance o’er thy head,

And the goanna shall squat

At the foot of thy bed;

The brave laughing jackass

Shall sing thee to sleep,

And the snake o’er thy slumbers

His vigils shall keep.

Then sleep, lady, sleep

Without dreaming of pain,

Till the frost of the morning

Shall wake thee again

                                
Robert Lowe

Fur

The cold sea swirled at Rhia’s ankles. The sodden weight of her hem was all that anchored her as they waded to the shore from the
Rajah
’s rowing boats. Her legs felt like they might buckle at any time. They were sea legs, now.

The sunset was a wildfire behind those strange trees. The tallest, whitest trees she had ever seen. Smooth branches and pale trunks glared in the half-light. The air was a choir of sighs and screeches, and the long grass beyond the sand rustled with unseen creatures.

Rhia could hear Nelly praying behind her, little Pearl tied to her front in a shawl. Nelly expected natives to be waiting for them in the trees, ready to run them through with spears and stew them in a vat. Ahead, Jane, who had put her foot down on something sharp in the water, was limping painfully. More than half the women, including Nora and Agnes, had reached the shore. There was something that weighted the air here, something beyond their experience. It had coiled itself around Rhia as soon as her bare feet were drawn down in the soft suck of brown sand. This place felt old. Old. The Wicklow Hills, by comparison, might have sprouted from the earth last spring.

At the edges of Manannán’s kingdom is the land where all earthly souls seek to enter. Each time a wave curls onto its shore, another spirit is granted entry.

Rhia forced her attention onto what she could see. The harbour front was a hundred yards away to the north, lit with gaslamps and braziers. There were two clippers moored at the quay, and at least three more anchored a mile or so out to sea. The sound of men’s voices was tossed about on the waves along with the snatch of a shanty and the creaking of willow as crates were unloaded onto the sand. There were low timber buildings,
bungalows
Albert had called them in Rio, along the seafront. To the south were towering cliffs and dark, jagged rocks and, she presumed, a hundred more coves like this one. The smells of wood smoke and livestock mingled with the scent of Mr Reeve’s uncharted flora.

There was nothing here to remind her of home.

They were herded towards a strip of beach deserted but for a band of soldiers in dusty coats. The soldiers eyed them as they stumbled from the sea. Did they expect someone to try and run into the dark thicket beyond the sand? As if any of these frightened, exhausted women would. Better to face another prison than those ghostly trees and the beasts that inhabited them.

By the light of the soldier’s lanterns they marched along a path through the grass and the underbrush and between the trees to a dusty road. The forest was not as dense as it had looked from the beach, but the trees were as unearthly. They had sparse, silver foliage, and the bark hung from their trunks in strips, as though they were shedding skin. Like snakes. Something thumped close by, making the underbrush quiver and the ground vibrate. Were there bears in Australia? Nelly had taken out her rosary beads.