Remember Me (40 page)

The cabin certainly looked real enough, very small with just the bunk, a kind of washstand, and a couple of hooks on the wall for clothes. Her bundle was on the washstand, beside it a pitcher of water. Through the porthole she could see barnacle-covered timbers, which had to be the sides of the wharf.

If it was a dream it was a lovely one, for she seemed to think the sailor who gave her rum had said Watkin Tench was on this ship.

She certainly hadn’t dreamed about the rum, she could still taste it in her mouth. But maybe she’d drunk it too fast, for the events after that weren’t clear at all. Could Tench have been one of the two men she’d heard talking by her? She was sure that one of them said, ‘She’s been through enough. I want her put in a cabin with her child. That way at least they’ll stand a chance.’

Mary lifted herself up a little to look at Charlotte. Her breathing was laboured, her skin felt hot and dry and she was so thin every bone in her small body stood out. It didn’t look to Mary as if she stood a chance. She had the same look Emmanuel had towards the end, and Mary had become all too familiar with the signs of approaching death during her time at the Batavia hospital to believe it was mere coincidence.

A rapping on the door woke Mary later. ‘Come in,’ she said weakly, surprised that anyone would treat an escaped convict with such deference.

The door opened, and there was Watkin Tench, looking exactly the way she remembered, slender, lean-faced, his dark eyes full of concern. Tears filled her eyes. So it hadn’t been a dream! He had come back into her life to rescue her.

‘Mary!’ he exclaimed, and moved closer to her, leaving the door open. ‘You cannot imagine my shock to hear you were travelling home on this ship. It is the most extraordinary coincidence.’

To Mary it was far more than coincidence. Only God could have worked this miracle.

‘I thought I was dreaming when I heard your voice,’ she admitted. ‘Then I found myself in this cabin.’

‘You have Captain Parker to thank for that,’ Tench said. ‘He is a good man, and when he heard the circumstances and saw how ill both you and Charlotte were, he gave the order. The surgeon will be along to see you both soon, and much as I want to know everything
that has happened since we last saw each other, you must rest.’

‘Do you know that Emmanuel and Will died?’ she asked.

He nodded gravely. ‘I am so sorry, Mary. I wish I had the right words to comfort you in your loss.’

The sincerity in his voice made her cry. In the past he had comforted her in so many different ways, for so many different reasons, and to find he was close by again when she needed a friend so badly was almost too much to bear.

‘You were always such a good friend,’ she said through her tears. ‘And here you are again.’

‘I missed you a great deal after you’d gone from Sydney Cove,’ he said. ‘It just wasn’t the same place without you. You can’t imagine the rumpus you caused.’

Mary tried to control herself and wiped away her tears. ‘James, William and the others, are they here too?’ she asked.

‘James Martin, Bill Allen, Nat Lilly and Sam Broome are,’ he said.

The hesitancy in his voice alerted her that something was wrong. ‘And the other three?’ she asked.

He looked away for a moment, as if afraid to admit the truth.

‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’ She slumped back on to her pillow in utter dejection. ‘Was it the fever?’

He nodded. ‘William Moreton and Samuel Bird died soon after leaving Batavia,’ he said, reaching out to touch her arm in sympathy. ‘Jamie Cox jumped overboard in
the Straits of Sunda. Maybe he was trying to escape, but it’s more likely he was maddened by the fever.’

Mary looked at Tench in horror. ‘Oh no,’ she croaked out, ‘not Jamie!’

Jamie had become like a member of her family, he’d shared so much with her and Will. On the
Dunkirk
and then the
Charlotte
and in Sydney Cove he’d been Will’s shadow. He had always seemed more of a boy than a man, even when he shared a hut with Sarah. He had a sweet innocence about him that set him apart from the other male prisoners. It was horrible to think of him ending his life in such a way.

‘The other four are in poor shape,’ Tench went on, ‘but I believe they will soon recover. James told me everything about the escape, and that they all owe their lives to you. They send good wishes to you and Charlotte. They hope once we sail they’ll be able to see you both.’

Mary turned her head towards Charlotte who lay asleep in the crook of her arm. ‘I don’t think she’ll live to see them, let alone England,’ she whispered.

Tench didn’t reply, and when she turned her face to look at him, she saw tears in his eyes.

‘Fate has treated you extraordinarily harshly,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and you have been so very brave. A line should be drawn now. You have suffered enough.’

‘Did I hear right?’ she asked. ‘Did that sailor call you Captain Tench?’

He touched her face gently. ‘How like you, Mary, to think of someone else at such a bad time for you. Yes, I’m Captain Tench now. I’m just glad my higher rank
gets me a few more privileges, like this cabin for you.’

And with that he left suddenly, and Mary hugged Charlotte tighter and cried. Would Tench ask why they escaped? Or would he understand?

She had left New South Wales with eight healthy men and two children. Maybe she hadn’t known some of the men very well then, and some she’d grown to like more than others. Yet they’d become a family, they had pulled together and made it to Kupang. But now there were only four left: cherubic Nat, funny James, stalwart Sam and pugnacious Bill. Half their number gone. And one of the children. Now Charlotte was mortally ill too, and the remainder would be hanged.

She had prided herself on being the mastermind behind the escape. In fact she’d led them all to their deaths.

The
Gorgon
sailed out of Cape Town on 5 April. Mary had her porthole open, and heard the shouted farewells from the wharf, but she was once again bathing Charlotte with cool water and didn’t even look out. Her only interest was in making her daughter well again.

As the ship got underway, Mary found herself treated with the utmost kindness. Food and water were brought to her, the ship’s surgeon visited her each day, and she was allowed up on deck at any time.

There were many familiar faces aboard other than Tench’s, for they were all people who had been in the penal colony and were now returning home after their term of duty was up. Among them was Lieutenant Ralph Clark, the hypocritical man who had spoken to the convict
women as though they were dirt under his feet, yet took up with one himself, and there were dozens of Marines with their wives and families.

Mary was far too despondent to talk to any of these people and ask how old friends like Sarah and Bessie had fared after she left. She could see a kind of irony in her situation. Had she become a lag wife to Tench or any of the officers, instead of marrying Will, she would have been left behind when they sailed. A widow here, or a widow there, whichever road she’d taken would have ended the same.

Mary doubted Ralph Clark had any sympathy with her – when she ran into him on deck he pointedly looked the other way – but everyone else was kind. Captain Parker’s wife visited her once, bringing her a green and white striped dress, and a night-shirt for Charlotte. She was cool, but then Mary didn’t expect a woman of her status to be friendly. It was enough that she’d overcome her fear of the fever to bring clothes.

Mary was gradually recovering her own health, feeling a little better each day, but Charlotte continued to sink. Some days she would swallow a little soup or mashed-up fruit, and stay awake long enough for Mary to sing to her or tell her some stories, but at other times she was delirious and unable even to sip water.

It became hotter and hotter in the next couple of weeks, and Mary was told by the surgeon that other children belonging to the Marines were sick. By Mary’s twenty-seventh birthday at the end of April, five children had died and were buried at sea.

Tench came whenever he could, and his deep concern for Charlotte was very touching. He often brought messages from James Martin and the other three men, who were just as anxious about her.

‘Kiss her for me,’ Tench said, reading from one of James’s notes. ‘Tell her all her uncles are waiting to see her.’

‘Are they well?’ Mary asked. Half of her wanted to see her friends, but the other half was afraid in case they started on about Will again. But as she didn’t like to leave Charlotte even for a minute or two she had the perfect excuse.

‘Much recovered,’ Tench said with a smile. ‘Eating like pigs. James teases and flirts with the ladies. He is as much of a success with them as he was with the women back in Sydney. He is also talking about writing his memoirs, which should make interesting reading. Bill plays cards with the crew, Sam and Nat are always dozing.’

Mary smiled. It was good to hear they were being treated well too. She was also very glad they were able to put aside what lay ahead for them in England, if only for a few weeks.

During the night of 5 May, Charlotte finally gave up her long struggle and died in her mother’s arms.

Mary continued to hold and rock her small body for over an hour, sobbing out her anguish. She wound her fingers into the dark curls so much like her own, and looked back at all the milestones in her short life. Her birth on the
Charlotte
, her christening, first teeth and
wobbly steps. But it was the time in Kupang Mary lingered most on, for there Charlotte had been truly happy, well fed for once, as free as any other child, and adored by everyone who met her.

At least now she wouldn’t have to suffer the loss of her mother when she was hanged, or be subjected to the miseries of an orphanage or workhouse. She would join her little brother in heaven.

Yet even though Mary could claim a dozen good reasons why she ought to be glad her daughter died at sea, her heart felt smashed into a thousand pieces. Everything Mary had done had been for her. Charlotte gave her reason to go on, and without her there was nothing.

Charlotte’s body was committed to the deep that afternoon with almost the entire ship’s company, the passengers and the other convicts looking on.

It was Sunday, and raining, and Mary stood bare-headed and stony-faced as Captain Parker led the prayers. She had sewn Charlotte’s body into the piece of sackcloth herself, and cried the last of her tears over it. She was empty now, nothing left, and she couldn’t understand why her own heart kept on beating so stubbornly.

Even as the small package slipped over the side, she didn’t cry out or turn to James or Sam for comfort. She wanted to join her daughter in a watery grave. Yet she knew if she tried to run forward and throw herself in, someone would try to stop her, and failure would make her feel even lower.

*

Agnes Tippet, one of the Marines’ wives, watched Mary walk away from the service, and turned to the women next to her. ‘She didn’t care one bit,’ she said in shocked tones. ‘No tears, nothing. I’ve never seen anyone bury a child with such a hard face.’

Watkin Tench heard Agnes’ remark. ‘Be quiet, you foolish woman,’ he snapped at her, incensed. ‘You have no real idea what she’s been through, or how she feels inside. Count yourself lucky your children are well, and don’t make judgements on another.’

As Tench strode away, he could hear the women whispering among themselves and he choked back tears of sadness and frustration.

He knew Mary so well. She would not burden anyone with her grief, least of all him. He had seen the desolation on the faces of James, Sam, Nat and Bill, and he knew it wasn’t only for the little girl they’d all come to love and look upon as their own, but for her mother as well. Mary had saved their lives, been a friend, sister and mother to each of them, and they all knew this latest tragedy had broken the last of her spirit.

Back in Sydney a year earlier, their escape had been a huge shock to Tench. He had believed he knew Mary and Will well enough to guess if they were hatching something like this up, yet he hadn’t had the faintest suspicion.

He didn’t have much faith that they would make it to the Dutch East Indies, for by all accounts it was a long and dangerous voyage. Yet he understood why they felt they had to attempt it, and greatly admired their courage.

He had missed Mary so much. Hardly a day passed
without him thinking about her. He offered up prayers for her safety, and a small part of him believed she must have survived, because he was sure he’d feel it if she were dead.

Even as he packed up his belongings to leave Sydney Cove, Mary was still on his mind. He could see her small, eager face in his mind’s eye, the way her eyes used to light up when he called at her hut. He could still see her slender but shapely legs as she tucked her dress up to wade into the sea and help with the seine net, and her dark curly hair tumbling about her face as she washed clothes. Yet it wasn’t the physical things about her he missed the most, it was her inquiring mind, her dry sense of humour and her stoicism.

Even if he had known she’d survived, he would never have considered he might run into her again. When Captain Parker told him in Cape Town that they would be taking deserters from Port Jackson back to England for trial, then named them, Tench was utterly astounded, almost disbelieving.

It seemed to him then that his fate and Mary’s were linked. That God in his infinite wisdom had always intended them for each other. This belief grew even stronger when he talked to the surviving men and learned of the voyage, and how Will and Emmanuel had died in Batavia. He was of course distressed to think that Mary had lost her husband and her little son, but according to the other men Will had betrayed them all, and he hadn’t got to know Emmanuel as well as he had Charlotte.

Then Mary came aboard, so weak that she collapsed,
and sweet little Charlotte, the child so many of his men believed was his, was mortally ill. Under the circumstances it wasn’t appropriate to tell Mary what was in his heart. All he could do was make sure she and Charlotte got whatever they needed to recover, and that he was around when she needed a friend.