by Rue Allyn
At Mary’s comments, Lizzie nodded slowly, her eyes riveted to Electra’s face. A chill ran up Electra’s spine as she read the intent in Lizzie’s eyes and in the faces of the women around her. She had already learnt through bitter experience that this was not a world where a woman squealed for help when threatened. No, it was clear she was on her own, with vigilance her only friend. She didn’t know when they would come but she knew it would be soon.
• • •
Nights were the worst.
It was past midnight the third day after Mary’s comments and Electra lay rigid on her sleeping shelf. Her head spun and her eyes were scratchy from lack of sleep. But she would not succumb until she heard the heavy snores of the women around her.
At last, all movement ceased and the steady rhythm of snores reverberated through the hold. As she relaxed, she felt an urgent need to use the privy. Hardly daring to breathe, she tiptoed to the far end of the room. She resisted the desperate urge to scratch the hundreds of tiny flea and lice bites that covered her body for fear she might disturb someone. As she made her way back, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The snores and snorts had stopped. Silence enveloped her like a dark cloud.
Like wraiths they appeared. Rough hands lunged from the shadows and slammed her against the bulkhead. She flung up her arms to protect her face as claw-like fingers lashed at her eyes and gouged skin from her cheeks. Others wakened by her screams either joined the melee or stood silently and watched. Bent purely on self-preservation she spun around, fists clenched and punched wildly. She kicked and she bit. She scratched; she plunged her elbows into windpipes, wrenched handfuls of hair, and refused to be beaten. Suddenly, at an unspoken signal, the women backed off and returned to their beds. And in minutes the grunts, snorts, and snores resumed.
Electra huddled in terror behind the curved rib of the hull until dawn. When she crept back to her small space, no one paid her the slightest attention. It was as if she had dreamed the night’s events.
• • •
Scratched, bruised and weary from lack of sleep, Electra dragged herself up the stairs and scanned the deck. Please let them leave me alone today, she prayed. As she hesitated, eight bells signalled the end of the watch. Perhaps she wouldn’t be noticed as the crew changed shift. She took a deep breath, put her head down, and took her chances.
The captain’s cabin was in sight when one of the crewmen, a flabby, unpleasant creature called Critchley, blocked her way.
He grinned with a marked lack of teeth. “Well, if it ain’t the duchess! Looky here lads, the captain’s whore has come to show us her wares. An’ by the look of her face, I reckon yer’d have ter fight for a look.”
One grimy hand gripped her arm while the other stroked down her neck to her shoulder. She shuddered, repulsed by his damp touch, and jerked free to dash across the deck to the captain’s cabin. The image of Critchley’s small, cruel eyes chilled her long after she reached safety.
She dropped her head onto the desk and prayed for the strength to survive the endless horrors of the journey. What peace to just slip over the side of the ship and be done with it all. She could already feel the cool water close over her head as it carried her down into the eternal depths; free at last.
But then, she reminded herself, her uncle would win. She had come too far and borne too much to give him that victory. There was no option but to endure.
She lifted her head and turned as the captain stepped through the doorway.
“God in heaven! Who did this to you?” he slammed his fist hard against the bulkhead.
“It was entirely my fault. I fell,” she said.
“Do you take me for a fool? I want their names. I won’t have you hurt. Do you hear me?” His voice faltered with his last words.
She started at the betrayal of his previously well-hidden feelings for her. There had been occasions over the past weeks when the captain had held her gaze overlong, or brushed her hand as he reached for an object. She had begun to suspect his interest had gone beyond that of a friendship. However, she had given him no encouragement and so he had never spoken of his attraction.
“Please captain, you know any punishment will make it worse for me.” She reached for his arm. He shook her away but his eyes told her he understood. “You can’t save me from this. I have to earn my place according to their rules.”
Her eyes followed his rigid back as he strode to the other side of the room. He faced the window and growled, “Any further injuries and they will be flogged. I have my limits.”
• • •
For reasons she could not divine, since the attack, the overt hostility of the women had shifted to small jibes or indifference. Perhaps in the fight she had acquitted herself to their satisfaction. Or more likely, as there had been no repercussions, they knew she had not exposed them to the captain. It didn’t matter why: she was grateful nonetheless.
One day as she hurried to the quarterdeck, she stopped in mid-stride as a loud rip sounded from her skirt. She bent down to free the fabric from a nail that protruded from a large wooden crate. As Electra straightened, she spied Critchley trudging toward her and crouched behind the crate until he passed. He and another seaman stopped feet away to check the bowlines on the mainmast.
Critchley hiked up his breeches and wiped spittle off his mouth, then turned to the small, ferret-faced man beside him. “That one, the duchess, thinks she’s a bit good, eh Sneed?”
Her breath caught; they could only mean her.
Sneed giggled. “Out o’ your league, Critchley. Cor, even the whores down the docks won’t let yer near ’em. Not after yer roughed that ’un up an’ all.”
“Shut up yer whoreson. The slattern wouldn’t put up a struggle, she lay there all open like. They knows I likes ‘em ter fight a bit.” He slapped Sneed on the back. “That ’un would fight though. Yar, I’d like ter break that ’un. Pity she’s the captain’s whore.”
Revulsion overcame fear; she jumped up from her hiding place and ran toward the captain’s cabin.
Critchley cackled and yelled, “Yer can run but yer ain’t goin’ ter escape what I got for yer.”
She slammed the door shut and stood against it, desperate to put a barrier between herself and the vile seaman. Her heart hammered her chest and she had to fight to draw breath. It took some minutes before her heartbeat slowed and her mind began to think coherently again. A shiver ran down her spine. What was the horrid creature capable of? Maybe the captain would know more.
She took up her pen and let the calm logic of the numbers on the page before her ease her tension until he made his morning visit. When the captain entered the cabin some time later, she laid down her pen and cleared her throat.
“You have something you wish to say, Miss Shipley?”
Electra started at his tone, sharp and to the point. Ever since his slip of emotion days ago, he demonstrated a defensive aloofness toward her. “I wondered what you knew of Seaman Critchley. Do you trust him?”
He stiffened. “Why? What has he done to you?”
“No, please, you mustn’t be concerned,” she said hastily. “It’s just that he makes me feel uncomfortable and I thought you might know something of his background.”
His eyes narrowed. “The man is a piece of scum that Clarke dragged out of a pothouse two nights before we sailed. I know nothing of his background except that he knows ships. He is lazy, ignorant, and insubordinate. And of one thing I am sure, this will be the last time he sails on my ship.”
She chewed her bottom lip as she thought on her next question. The captain’s gaze did not move from her face.
“It seems you’re not done with your questions, Miss Shipley,” he said, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, there is something I wish to ask but I’m not sure how you will receive my question.”
“You can but try me, madam.”
She cleared her throat. “The men, they expect certain — er, favors from the women.”
He nodd
ed, seeming unperturbed at her statement.
“Being a convict should not remove a woman’s right to protect her virtue.” She was aware of heat in her neck and face.
“A convict has no rights, madam. However, my observations indicate most of the women welcome the men’s attentions and in fact encourage them.”
“But what if — ”
“You may rest assured you are under my protection while on this ship and no man would dare lay a finger upon you. This subject is now closed.” He turned on his heel and left the cabin.
Electra sighed. She hated to cause the good captain pain but she knew she could not give him what he wanted.
• • •
Although Electra had the captain’s protection, young Mary Buckley did not. Four weeks after their transfer from Newgate to the Liberty, the seventeen-year-old had been forced to favour the bo’sun’s mate and not long after found she was with child. The girl’s belly grew as the ship drew closer to the colony.
As the lookout on the mizzenmast sighted the heads into Port Jackson after eight months at sea, Mary went into labour.
Electra had fallen into a restless sleep still recording supplies in her head, when she was woken by Mary’s unearthly wails.
“Help me, Jeezuz! It’s rippin’ me apart!” she screamed.
“It’s the babe, it’s comin’ an’ there’s somefin’ wrong,” hissed Lizzie Cranston.
The women, annoyed at their sleep being disturbed, yelled at Mary to “shut up.” Some threatened harm if she continued.
Electra, unable to ignore Mary’s screams, joined Lizzie who seemed to know what she was about.
“The babe’s facin’ the wrong way. We got ter turn it,” said Lizzie, as she massaged Mary’s belly and thrust her grimy hands inside to feel for the baby. She withdrew her hand and shook her head. “Whatever it is, it ain’t the back of ’is head. Might be I got ’is leg or face but it don’t feel right.”
One by one, the women gave up on sleep and gathered around Mary. Their faces were blank but their eyes betrayed their doubts that Mary or the baby would survive. Life and circumstances had desensitized them and they awaited the inevitable with indifference.
Mary’s mouth hung open as she gasped shallow breaths with each searing contraction. Her eyes, wide with fear, locked first on Lizzie and then Electra, soundlessly begging for help.
“What can we do?” asked Electra, desperate to help the young girl.
“Here, take her arm, she’s got ter walk. If we kin get her movin’, the babe might move an’ all,” said Lizzie, as she hefted Mary to her feet.
Electra encircled the thin, trembling body with one arm and held her close, as much for comfort as support. Mary’s hair and clothes were wet with perspiration and her dirty shift clung to her thin legs and enlarged belly. For five hours, she and Lizzie walked Mary up and down the airless hold, stopping regularly for the contractions to pass. Finally, they lowered Mary exhausted upon the rough bedding piled on the floor for the purpose. Lizzie once more felt for the baby and looked up at Electra with a nod and a thin smile.
In the long hours they worked side-by-side, Electra felt Lizzie’s eyes on her. She knew Lizzie, like the others, did not trust her and the few words exchanged while they tended to Mary were more than had been said throughout the entire voyage. As difficult as it was to accept, Electra understood why the women would hate her. For them, she represented the class they held responsible for their poverty and hardship. However, in the past few hours she sensed something had changed between herself and Lizzie and suspected she had found an ally.
The pains now came at closer intervals and at Lizzie’s instruction, Electra gently massaged Mary’s belly. The skin was stretched as tight as a drum and the baby had moved low onto the pelvis. Lizzie stroked her rough fingers over the hard lump to ensure it was the slope of the baby’s back. Then she put her ear to Mary’s stomach to listen to the baby’s heartbeat.
Electra watched, fascinated, until Lizzie lifted her head and pointed at Mary’s belly. “Here, put yer hand down and see if yer can feel the back of its skull.” Lizzie took Electra’s hand and guided it to where the birth canal began.
“Oh, Lizzie, I can feel it,” she gasped.
The older woman blinked at Electra then urged Mary to push. But the young girl had lost the strength to cooperate.
Finally, Lizzie turned and rubbed her aching back. “If she don’t do somefin’ right now, we gonna be buryin’ two bodies soon as we hit land.”
This sparked a reaction from Mary who lifted her head and screamed, “No you ain’t.” And with an almighty effort, pushed a pale, scrawny boy into Lizzie’s scrambling hands.
There was a moment’s silence from the incredulous onlookers. Then with the realization it was done, they cheered the courageous new mother and fussed over the squirming newborn. Lizzie wrapped him in a strip of her skirt and put him back into his mother’s arms.
With weary effort, Electra wiped a stray tear from her face as she pondered the miracle she had just witnessed. To think that even in the filthy hold of a prison ship, an innocent baby could move the hearts of the most implacable women. She sucked in a deep breath and savoured a moment of euphoria for the first time in many months.
The dark, cramped quarters were silent. The only sound was the raspy wheeze of old Lizzie Cranston, exhausted after her night’s work. Distracted by hours of Mary’s screams, no one at first noticed the ship had ceased to roll until Hetty Bender jumped up and squealed with excitement.
“It’s the cove. We’re here. Jeezuz, it’s bloody over.”
“Nar, lass, it’s just startin’,” croaked Lizzie. The old woman glanced over to Electra and nodded her thanks.
A deep chill skittered down her spine.
They had arrived.
Chapter Two
Sydney Town, Australia
“Sir. Mister Radcliffe, sir. The Liberty is after being ready to unload. What be your orders?”
William Radcliffe flexed his tanned arms to ease the ache in his back and rubbed at his stubbled chin.
“Move the wagons closer to the ship, Sean. Then you and the other two board and wait for me on deck. I don’t want any of those light-fingered dockworkers near my goods.”
“Sure now and I remember the last time, sir.” The man, about to move off, paused and turned back, “And I saw the new lamb. A grand wee thing she is too. Ye’ll not have had much sleep I’ll wager.”
William Radcliffe smiled. “Yes, she is perfect. The first from my new stock of Spanish Merinos. Damned ship could have picked a better day to dock; I’ve only had two hours’ sleep.” He yawned and as Sean moved off, William made the mistake of glancing toward the road.
“Helloo, Mister Radcliffe. Over here,” called the older of two women standing by a carriage.
He groaned as he recognised Mrs. Litchfield and her daughter, Wilhelmina. The woman was desperate to find a husband for her very dull daughter and had targeted William. Mrs. Litchfield waved her fan and with the other hand pushed her daughter toward him.
It was too late to ignore them. “A delight to see you both, but unfortunately, I must unload my goods and cannot stay a moment longer.”
Mrs. Litchfield tapped him on the arm coquettishly and looked sideways at her daughter. “Every handsome man can find time for a lovely young woman. What say you, Mr. Radcliffe?”
He tried to hide his irritation and with a nod to them both answered, “Not today Mrs. Litchfield.” He ignored the startled gasps behind him as he strode toward the ship.
As well as his long-awaited cargo, he heard the Liberty was carrying over one hundred women convicts. How many men would have their lives turned upside down by this load of doxies? He could only imagine. At least he would not be one of them. As he approached the ship, his cheek was pinched by two long crimson fingernails.
“Allo blue eyes, my darlin’, where have you been hiding yourself? You ain’t been to see us for a while. Our Molly misses you,” pouted the
red-lipped speaker.
William flashed her a grin and flipped the tight curl sitting on her shoulder. “Good to see you, Nora. I’ve been busy on the farm, but you can tell Molly I’ll be in to see her very soon. Are you down here to strip these poor sailors of their hard-earned money?”
“Oooh, ’ow could you think such a thing?” She winked and disappeared into the crowd. He shook his head and laughed.
His mind back on business, William Radcliffe boarded the ship and joined his three workers. After a complete inspection of the cargo on deck, he found two of his crates were missing.
“Where the hell are they, Sean? See what you can find out.”
“They be below decks, accordin’ to the bo’sun, sir. Shall I seek them out then?” Sean asked.
William frowned and flexed his arms again. “Let’s just get these loaded and then I’ll attend to the others.”
Despite his lack of sleep, William Radcliffe moved with energy and purpose. He had waited more than eighteen months for his cargo and was eager for the farm implements, clothing, books, wine, and most importantly, for the look on Shelagh’s face when she saw the piano. It had been a spur of the moment decision when he’d ordered the more necessary items. Even Callum had not been told it was coming. But the grief of her past was so deeply etched in Shelagh’s face that when she let slip how much she loved to play, he had thought to bring some pleasure to her life.
He caught sight of Captain Hawley and acknowledged him with a curt nod as the captain disappeared into his cabin. The captain was well known in Sydney Town and seemed to be popular with the ladies, but William had never seen him in the company of any one woman in particular. Not that he cared. He jerked his head, flicked the hair out of his eye and called to Sean to indicate another crate.
• • •
Electra had been summoned to the captain before they were to disembark. As she crossed to his cabin, she noticed Seaman Critchley ensconced behind the chicken crates, probably to avoid the first mate. He held a tin of lard out as the seaman next to him rubbed the animal fat down the lower section of the mast and onto the tackle. Critchley watched, his lip curled in distaste, but did not stir himself to assist with the task. Electra tried to slip past but his eyes, sharp and watchful, caught her movement. He grinned, rubbed his groin and licked his fat, wet lips suggestively. Electra looked away, hurried to the cabin and closed the door behind her.
