Other boats came in, depositing more and more women on the beach, and the hubbub grew louder, the pushing and shoving more aggressive. But it was as much on the women’s part as the men’s – some of them were even running over to the men to kiss and embrace them.
Mary wanted so much to take off her boots, to run barefoot along the sand, to look at the strange birds watching them from the trees, to revel in her new-found freedom. But she could see this wasn’t an option right now, she had to stay in the safety of a group.
Seeing a small bunch of women with children, standing apart, Mary ran over to them.
‘Lawd have mercy on us,’ she gasped out. ‘It’s getting out of hand!’
A tall woman in a plain dark brown dress and bonnet, holding a small child in her arms, responded. ‘We asked to be taken to a place of safety some time ago,’ she said.
‘But our husbands seem distracted.’
Mary realized then that these women were Marines’ wives and families, and as she’d been treated with some kindness by those who travelled on the Charlotte, she assumed this group would be the same.
‘May I stay with you?’ she asked. ‘I’m afraid for my baby.’
The woman’s expression stiffened. ‘Join the other women from your ship,’ she said curtly. ‘That’s where you belong.’
Shamed, Mary turned and walked away, realizing that brief encounter had shown how things were going to be here.
A little more order came later when the Marines fired a warning volley over the prisoners’ heads, and the women were led to the tents allocated to them. But even as they were marched along, Mary overheard comments and giggles that suggested most of the women were too excited by the eager men to be kept under control for long.
Mary, Bessie and Sarah managed to stay together, but the other three women they were to share the tent with were strangers. The leader of the three, who announced herself as Cheapside Poll, was a tall, skinny woman with hard blue eyes, wearing a striped dress and a battered red hat. She deposited a carpet bag by the tent pole and glowered at Mary and her friends.
‘Any of you so much as think of digging in there and I’ll slit yer nostrils,’ she said. She looked round at her companions and urged them to tell what she was capable of.
‘She done it to a woman in Newgate,’ a fat one with a pock-marked face said gleefully. ‘Never ’eard screams like it afore.’
‘We aren’t thieves,’ Mary said, even though technically she supposed they were. She was frightened now; all three women had harsh voices and a way of speaking which was very different to her own. As she knew Newgate was the infamous prison in London, she supposed that was where they came from.
‘Keep that brat well away from me,’ Poll said viciously, pointing to Charlotte. ‘I can’t be doing with a screamer.’
It was perhaps fortunate that the three Londoners were anxious to get out of the tent as quickly as possible. After laying their blankets down, they disappeared.
Mary sat down to feed Charlotte, but it was clear from the way Sarah and Bessie were fidgeting that they were anxious to get out too. Both her friends looked much better now than they had back in England. Sarah was plumper, with pink cheeks and shining hair, while Bessie, who had been fat when they arrived at the Dunkirk, was a couple of stones lighter, and her once grey complexion peachy with health.
‘We’ll just look around,’ Bessie said, primping up her hair. ‘We’ll be back when we’ve found out where we get our rations from.’
Mary had been looking forward to going ashore as much as anyone, but now she felt close to tears. It was so hot, sweat was already soaking her dress, she needed to find water, both for a drink for herself and to cool Charlotte down. All around her she could hear strident, coarse voices, but the language they spoke wasn’t English as she knew it. She guessed it was the Newgate prison cant she’d heard about in Exeter, for odd words had a familiar ring to them. She hadn’t expected that she would have to learn a new language on top of everything else.
On the ship she had known exactly what was expected of her, a daily routine that seldom varied. She was one of only twenty women, an individual with a name and a character. Now she was to be one of some 200 women, thrown in together without any clear-cut rules of behaviour. If Cheapside Poll was an example of what she could expect of the rest of the women, she knew she would need to find new strengths for survival.
Tears dripped down her cheeks as she held Charlotte to her breast, and the words she’d so often heard in church at Easter-time came to her: ‘Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?’
Darkness came suddenly, taking Mary by surprise. There appeared to be no twilight period like back in England. The noise which had grown louder and louder throughout the afternoon reached fever pitch.
Mary had plucked up courage to explore the row of women’s tents to seek out her old companions and get food and water. She had spotted James Martin with Samuel Bird, but though they waved and shouted out greetings, Mary didn’t go and talk to them as they were with other more desperate-looking men. She did try to join in the revelry for a while, but the underlying menace in it drove her to join some of the older women who were as nervous as she was.
Again and again the Marines had tried to separate the men from the women, with little success, but as darkness fell all attempts to control the prisoners broke down, and couples were seen scurrying off into the bushes.
Mary was just laying Charlotte down in her crib in the tent, when a flash of lightning lit up the entire bay. Thunder followed it, so loud it was like a cannon, making Charlotte scream out. More thunder and lightning followed, and then came rain, heavier than Mary had ever seen in her life. Within minutes the hard ground was awash, water running through the tent like a river.
Mary expected that the storm would at least dampen the spirits of the revellers as it put out the many fires burning along the beach. Yet as she crouched in the shelter of the tent looking out, to her horror she saw that the storm was only inflaming people more. Each flash of lightning lit up acts of obscenity, women pulling off their clothes, men rushing to grab them and taking them there in the mud. But if such acts were horrifying, they were at least mutual; elsewhere she saw men rushing like ravaging beasts, pulling down women who were running for their lives, their screams reverberating around the camp. It wasn’t only the convicts either, some of the men were Marines, and as she stood with her hands clamped over her mouth in horror, she saw old women, too frail and bent to run, being knocked to the ground and raped.
It was like a scene from hell she’d once seen a picture of at Sunday school in Fowey, the men demonic in their lust, some women spurring them on with gleeful shouts, others screaming in terror. She saw one woman get up unsteadily from the ground as her rapist left her, so thickly coated with mud she had no features, only to be leapt upon by a second man, while another stood waiting for his turn.
Mary didn’t know what to do. To run from the tent would be folly for she would surely be caught by someone, and if she took Charlotte with her she might be dashed from her arms and killed. Yet the tent offered no protection. Even as she hesitated, another flash of lightning revealed a band of men coming along the rows of tents looking in each for new prey.
Grabbing Charlotte from her crib, she wriggled under the back of the tent and cowered there for a moment, considering which direction would be the safest. Going inland appeared to be the best choice, with luck there might be bushes to hide under, so hitching Charlotte under one arm and holding up her dress with the other, she ran for her life into the shelter of the trees.
She stubbed her bare feet against stumps of felled trees and tripped over dead branches, but somehow she managed to hold on to her baby. Just as she thought she was well away from the mayhem on the beach, however, she saw two men in front of her.
‘Lookee here,’ one of them shouted. ‘Fresh meat.’
‘Don’t hurt me,’ Mary screamed out in terror, for she knew whichever way she ran, one of them would catch her
. ‘I’ve got a baby with me.’
‘We ain’t after hurting a baby,’ one of them said. ‘Just put it down and be nice to us.’
Mary screamed and clutched Charlotte even tighter to her. But one of the men grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down to the ground.
Flat on her back, still holding Charlotte who was now screaming too, Mary fought with the only weapons she had, her legs and feet. It was too dark to see, but she felt the heel of her foot land in a soft place and the yell that followed it suggested she’d struck his belly.
‘Get off me, you brutes,’ she yelled. ‘There’s plenty of willing women back there.’
One man pinned her down by the shoulders, the second one grabbed her by the knees and forced them apart. She could smell their sweat and rancid breath.
‘Damn you to hell,’ she screamed out, still bucking frantically. ‘Help me, someone!’
The man who held her legs apart was pulling her on to him as he knelt in front of her, the other one was still holding her shoulders in a grip of steel. She heard someone crashing through the bushes even over Charlotte’s screams, but that increased her terror further as she thought it would be another man wanting to join in.
‘Let her go,’ a male voice bellowed out, and to her shock she recognized the voice as Will’s. She saw nothing more than a dark shadow, then heard a crack, and the man about to rape her toppled back on to the ground.
There was another loud crack and the hands on her shoulders fell away. ‘That’s my woman,’ Will roared out, and all at once he was pulling her up and holding her in his arms.
‘There, there,’ he said gently, disengaging himself slightly so Charlotte wouldn’t be crushed. ‘You’re safe now.’
Taking her arm, he led her away. Mary had to suppose he had knocked the two men out with some kind of cudgel, but she didn’t turn to look.
‘Did they do it?’ he asked breathlessly.
‘No,’ she gasped out. ‘You were just in time.’
Will took her much further into the trees, and when they came to one that offered some real shelter from the heavy rain, he stopped and made her sit down.
‘Are you or the babby hurt?’ he asked, sitting down beside her and putting his arm around her.
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied, rocking Charlotte in her arms to soothe her.
All at once she was crying as she had never cried since her trial. All the hardships, deprivations, the cruelty and humiliations she had endured for so long seemed to come to the surface, just because one man cared enough to comfort her.
‘You’re safe now,’ he whispered, holding her tight and rocking her. ‘I won’t let anyone touch you again.’
A little later it stopped raining as suddenly as it had begun, and the moon came out from behind the clouds. Will continued to hold Mary as she offered Charlotte her breast to calm her. They were soaking wet and covered in mud, but at least it wasn’t cold.
‘I came looking for you when it all got nasty,’ Will explained. ‘I’d seen Sarah and Bessie earlier and they said you was back in the tent putting Charlotte down. I should have come to you then.’
‘I was scared almost as soon as we came ashore,’ Mary admitted. ‘Everyone was so wild.’
‘It was like a madness caught them all,’ Will said, his tone hushed and shocked. ‘I’ve never seen the like afore.’
‘How did you find me?’
He was silent for a moment, and she guessed his conscience wasn’t entirely clear either.
‘I saw a gang going through all the women’s tents,’ he said eventually. ‘I guessed if you were in there you’d get out the back and run for it. So I went that way, and I heard a babby crying.’
‘Will it always be this way?’ Mary whispered. She was shivering with shock, the vivid pictures of what she’d seen down on the beach still dancing before her eyes.
‘I don’t reckon so,’ he sighed. ‘Tomorrow the officers will take control, there’ll be floggings for some, chains for others, it will settle down.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ she said. ‘But I don’t like the thought of living with those London women, they scare me to death.’
‘You scared?’ he teased. ‘A girl who is brave enough to ask a man to marry her?’
‘I wish I hadn’t now,’ she admitted. ‘It must have seemed so forward. It was just that we appeared to have so much in common, I really like you and as tonight proved, women do need some protection here.’
‘They do indeed,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But I think us men will need a good woman beside us too. So we will get married.’
‘You want to marry me?’ She was so surprised it dried up her tears instantly.
‘Well, I don’t want one of those London harpies full of pox,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘You were right, Mary. We’ll make a good team, you and me. They’ll need someone to fish, a lot of the food they brought with us is rotten. I think I can bargain for us to get a house of our own, my mind’s a bit sharper than most of the others.’
Mary was very aware he wasn’t saying he loved her, only that he thought she was clean and useful to him. Yet he had fought off those men for her, he’d comforted her just when she needed it. This place was going to be a living hell, and she doubted she could survive it alone. She didn’t expect or need romantic love, she’d settle for protection.
Four days after that terrible night, Will and Mary were married by the Reverend Johnson under the shade of the big tree where he’d held his first service. They weren’t alone, other couples married too, perhaps for the same reasons as Mary and Will.
Mary had no finery to wear, just the same shabby old grey dress freshly washed, and an artificial flower in her hair, lent to her in an unusually generous gesture by Cheapside Poll.
Mary had no real expectations, either of her marriage or of this new country. In the four days since coming ashore she had observed that the vast majority of the convicts were bone idle and devious. They would steal anything, cared nothing for the idea of working for the common good, and many were already bartering rations or belongings with the Marines for drink. The Marines were every bit as bad, and there was a lack of organization on the part of the officers and the powers that be who had sent them out from England.
Will had been right in saying some of the food was rotten. Mary had had to eat rice crawling with maggots and the salted beef was almost inedible. Tools were of inferior quality, there were too few women’s clothes, and a complete lack of skilled men.
She wondered how they could farm this desolate place when there were but two men out of hundreds who knew anything about farming or animal husbandry. How could a town be built without skilled carpenters or brickmakers? Captain Arthur Phillip had his house erected, a superior canvas one, a store-house had been built to lock away the provisions, and a few tents had been put in isolation as a hospital.
But the animals brought with them were in poor health, and dysentery had already broken out among those weakened by the voyage. Captain Phillip might be proud that only forty-eight people overall had died on the way here, but how many more would perish before the year was out?
An eighty-year-old woman hanged herself from a tree on that first night ashore. Many women still had black eyes and a hunted look. There were snakes, spiders and many flies and other insects, any of which could be dangerous. As for the natives, the officers seemed intent on getting their cooperation, when even an illiterate girl like herself could sense they bitterly resented this swarm of white people who’d taken it upon themselves to oust them from their land. Mary wondered how long it would be before their curiosity turned to real anger and they began killing.
But Will had been as good as his word. Not only had he pledged to marry her, he’d already made a deal that put him in charge of fishing and allowed him to build a hut for himself.
Mary glanced at him standing next to her, and smiled. He looked so handsome in a clean shirt and breeches; he’d even shaved off his bushy beard, and his blond hair was as
bright as ripe corn. She knew most of the women envied her, for he was without doubt the most attractive and capable of all the male convicts. She might have her work cut out keeping him faithful to her, and perhaps his bragging would be wearing, but she did like and trust him. That was enough.
As the wedding ceremonies ended and everyone drifted back to their tents or the huts they were building, Lieutenant Tench stood for a little while watching Mary and Will walk away up the beach.
He was in a state of confusion about everything. Nothing was as he’d expected – not the country, nor the organization, nor the officers from the other ships. Even the stores they’d brought with them were inadequate. It was a shambles, in fact. And from what he’d seen of the convicts so far, it was going to be an uphill struggle to get any of them to work.
As far as he could see, only a handful of officers shared his will to make this place work. As for his men, most of them were behaving appallingly, every bit as devious and idle as the convicts.
He had thought he would feel more positive after the weddings today. They were, after all, one way of injecting a little joy into a new community, a show of hope for the future. Yet he had felt no joy at seeing those couples married. What he felt was utter sadness.
His mother always cried at weddings. She believed the more she cried, the happier the couple would be. But he knew his mother’s tears weren’t sad ones, they were pure emotion at a public declaration of love between two people.
Perhaps that was the cause of his sadness, knowing the couples married today were not in love. The women wanted protection and security, the men wanted sex.
He had thought he’d be happy to see Mary under Will’s protection. But he hadn’t considered till now that meant she would be her husband’s in every way.
He turned sharply and walked away towards the store-sheds. Maybe if he found something constructive to do he’d overcome these ridiculous feelings milling around inside him. Mary looked pretty and happy. Will was a decent enough man. They were right for each other.
Remember Me Page 13
