by Sarah Lark
“Getting an early start,” a disapproving voice remarked from the bed across the way.
Lizzie lay just a couple of feet away from her neighbor at the same height. In the dreary light that came through the spaces in the deck planks, she saw an older woman. Even in these circumstances the woman wore her hair tightly tucked under a bonnet, and she had been permitted her dress and the modest head covering. So she could not be entirely without means.
Lizzie realized that her new admirer hadn’t chained the women who had been fighting in the berths across from hers.
“Sooner or later,” Lizzie answered calmly, “the boys do what they want. Besides, aren’t you happy you weren’t chained up?”
“I don’t care either way,” said the woman. “They could have hanged me for all I care.” With that, she turned her face to the wall.
Lizzie closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself out of the stuffy tween deck. She did not succeed, of course. She could not help thinking of the men and women who were chained up even deeper down. She listened to the dozens of them who wept and prayed.
She was only leaving Hannah and the children behind, but most of the other women were mourning husbands, lovers, and children of their own. She did not wonder what or whom the woman next to her was leaving behind or how she had ended up here. She did not look like a criminal, but Lizzie did not feel guilty herself either.
Finally, she tried reading the Bible, hearing the calls and commands from the deck above, the rustling of unfurling sails, and then the droning of the wind caught in them. Most of the women screamed when the ship began to move—as did the few men in the hold.
Michael Drury had screamed along with the other prisoners when his ship had left Ireland. Now, however, he was silent. For him, England was just as foreign and perhaps more hostile than far-off Australia. He had been lucky that in London, he had not seen more than a length of harbor wall. Originally, the prisoners from Ireland were supposed to be put on one of the prison hulks that lay at anchor in Woolwich. But then some space had been found on this ship, which was transporting women to Van Diemen’s Land.
They had moved the Irish prisoners directly from one ship to another, and now Michael, in chains for half a day, lay on his pallet in the darkest corner of the darkest deck in the Asia. The captain had given the men transport only on the condition that they remain strictly separated from the female prisoners at all times. So they could not hope for much freedom of movement. And yet no one had thought to provide the men with chamber pots or bottles into which they could relieve themselves.
In every row, there was at least one man frozen in silent agony who did not respond to the calls of his fellows. Billy Rafferty was among them. The young man had fallen into a sort of numbness after screaming and crying for hours during the departure from Ireland. He had already suffered occasional fits of claustrophobia in his cell in Wicklow, and the tightly sealed dark rooms belowdecks on the rocking ship to London caused him to lose his mind. Now he lay next to Michael in chains, whimpering.
The stench on the lowest deck quickly became worse and worse, the air stuffier. Michael was happy when the ship finally began to move. Maybe they would finally remove the prisoners’ chains now.
Indeed, that was the case on the tween deck, but Michael and his companions in misery remained fettered. Adding to the existing stench came that of vomit, for the first days at sea proved stormy.
“The English Channel,” the man in the berth next to Michael’s explained. He was a sailor who had killed another man during a brawl. “As far as the Bay of Biscay, it’s mostly rough weather. The molls will be puking their guts out. But damn it, I’m hungry anyway. Is there nothing to eat around here? Even any of those dry crackers?”
Before the guards had distributed a meager ration of hardtack that morning, they had sent a few women down from the tween deck with buckets and mops to wash up at least the worst filth. A watchman stood next to each of the women as if, despite their chains, Michael and the other men might jump them.
“At least your beds aren’t stacked on top of each other,” one of the women said, trying to comfort Michael, “or you’d have to wipe it off your face. Happened to a few of us. And the seasick ones still don’t always make it to the privy. How long does a trip like this take?”
“About a hundred days,” the imprisoned sailor informed her.
The men groaned.
“I thought four weeks maybe,” mumbled Michael. “Like to America.”
The sailor laughed bitterly. “New York is a stone’s throw compared to this. But they’ll take us up on deck. They can’t let us rot here for three months. The queen, she’s a good woman. She wouldn’t allow it.”
Michael did not comment on this. After Queen Victoria had let half of Ireland starve without a word, he couldn’t attribute much goodness to her. But perhaps she at least showed mercy to her landsmen. The majority of prisoners in Van Diemen’s Land were Englishmen, after all.
Michael yearned for light and air, but even more to be able to stretch his legs. He was already feeling the pressure of the hard wooden pallet to which he was chained. Like most of his fellow prisoners, he was undernourished, and his shoulder blades poked out and quickly became sore from lying on the pallet. Worse still were the barely healed welts on his back, which burned after the women emptied a few buckets of seawater over the fettered prisoners. Now, the men were clean but wet, and though it was humid in the belly of the Asia, it was not very warm. Likely, it would be days until Michael’s linen pants and shirt were dry, and then they’d be filthy again.
Lizzie and the other women in the tween deck also struggled with seasickness, but at least they had a bucket on hand for every six women. In Lizzie’s partition, it had hit Candy and two other women the worst. Velvet didn’t seem to notice anything happening around her, and the older woman—after two days of silence, she had finally introduced herself as Mrs. Portland—was apparently too busy to be sick.
It appeared it was Mrs. Portland’s self-appointed duty to care for the other women. She ran from one to the next with pitchers and buckets full of drinking and wash water, forcing them to eat at least a little bit of the hardtack but not complaining when they immediately vomited it up.
“A few are so weak,” she explained to Lizzie, “I’m afraid they’ll die of exhaustion.”
Following Mrs. Portland’s directions, Lizzie was tending to Candy. “So when will this get better?”
“When the sea calms down,” replied a man’s voice.
Lizzie spun around. For four days she had been expecting the guard with whom she had flirted during embarkation to claim her services, but apparently he’d had too much to do on deck.
“Sometimes it also gets better when you get out in the air. How about it, sweet? Want to take a walk with me?”
Lizzie would have done anything to get out in the air, but on the other hand . . . “These two are doing a lot worse than me,” she said, pointing to Candy and another of the women.
This woman was tiny and could hardly be more than fourteen years old. She would not survive long if she continued spewing all her food.
The guard thought a moment. “First, be good to me,” he finally said, “and then we’ll see. It’s about time you all went on deck anyway. I’ll speak with the lieutenant.”
Giving him a gentle smile, Lizzie followed him up the stairs. Cold, damp Atlantic air struck her immediately. She held her face happily into the wind and looked around curiously. Lizzie was not the only girl on deck. Apparently, a few of the guards were giving one another alibis so they could go topside with the girls of their choice. Lizzie’s guard—he introduced himself as Jeremiah—had even thought of protection from the rain. He pulled her into a lifeboat over which he had spread a tarpaulin. There was a blanket for bedding, and what was more, he produced a bottle of gin from under the planks with a triumphant grin.
Lizzie took a long swig; the alcohol warmed her body and calmed her stomach. Then she let herself sink, cont
ent, onto the blanket. She had plied her trade under less conducive circumstances before. Though she found it difficult to feign passion when Jeremiah finally entered her, he fortunately proved easy to please. The man also proved to be normally sized—it did not hurt too much, though she was anything but ready for him. Lizzie let the business pass over her and then asked him for the promised walk. To her surprise, Jeremiah agreed. He seemed to be truly thankful to her; perhaps he had even fallen for her a bit.
He led her across the deck, showing her the structures for the passengers’ cabins and the crew’s quarters. By the end, Lizzie’s hair was wet from the rain, and she felt refreshed. It was almost too much when, on top of that, Jeremiah handed her the bottle of gin, still more than half full, and a small bag of flour.
“Here, it’s good for the stomach. Perhaps you can get the little one in your partition back on her feet. Mix the flour with water; it’ll help her.”
Lizzie thanked him profusely. When she got back to their stuffy, stinking lodgings, she put the bottle to Candy’s lips first. Candy drank greedily and seemed to feel better immediately.
“Mrs. Portland?” Shyly, Lizzie held the bottle out to the older woman.
Mrs. Portland looked disapprovingly at the gin. “I’ve avoided that my entire life,” she said, “but what’s to be done? When in Rome . . .” She looked at Lizzie, then took the bottle and sipped. She coughed and struggled for air.
“I don’t drink it for fun either.” Lizzie felt she had to defend herself. Her instinct told her this was a good woman who had lived a life pleasing to God. Lizzie would so have liked to know how she had ended up on the ship. “Do we still have water?” she asked.
The guards distributed the drinking water to the partitions in pitchers, though it hardly sufficed. Again and again, ugly scenes arose; in some of the partitions, the women were fully at odds. They begrudged each other every sip of water and every bite of bread.
Mrs. Portland nodded, and Lizzie dissolved some flour in the water as Jeremiah had advised. She gave some to Mrs. Portland’s charge, who drank it and managed to keep the mixture down.
The next day the guards did, indeed, open all the portholes for the women held in the tween deck.
“Step up in groups of twenty-four,” said the lieutenant who commanded Jeremiah and the other guards. “Limit yourselves to the separated deck space and move around. Loitering will not be tolerated. Contact with the passengers will not be tolerated. Do not speak to the sailors or guards.”
Lizzie supported Candy, and Mrs. Portland carried the sick girl onto deck. Then they walked around. The women seemed a bit like wild animals on display at the fair; after all, there were plenty of spectators. The sailors treated themselves to prurient looks, and the passengers gathered in front of their cabins and stared at the prisoners. Most of the passengers were middle-aged, retired people who had finished their military or police service and were now taking advantage of the generous land apportionment in Australia. In England, their pensions hardly sufficed to live on, but in Australia they would be rich. Servants were, after all, abundant—the wives of these future settlers would have their pick from among Lizzie and her fellow sufferers.
Going outside awoke the prisoners’ desire to live, but there was a problem. It rained constantly, and the storerooms were not sealed tight. All their clothes were damp, and the spring chill of the Atlantic did nothing to dry them. At least the water that washed over the deck in rough seas did not stand on the tween deck. It seeped through to the lower level and collected there. In some places belowdecks it stood knee-high and stank.
The women were taken outside daily, but the men remained heavily fettered. Not much movement was possible for them, so they were soaking wet and shivering with cold. And they were suffering their first cases of fever and diarrhea. Michael often drifted off in fever dreams and half sleep; his wounds had become inflamed and hurt. But it was not yet so bad that he lost all his strength. He forced himself to eat, and now he could keep the food down. Mostly, Michael suffered from the cold and wet.
“It will get warmer one of these days, once we reach the Bay of Biscay,” his neighbor, the sailor, consoled him as he shivered and coughed.
The sailor was right, but the warmth, followed by the heat of the Indian Ocean, did not improve the prisoners’ situation. The women on the tween deck were happy about their dry clothing, but Michael and the other heavily guarded men were not so lucky. Belowdecks it remained damp, and the warmth encouraged rot. On top of that, bugs gained the upper hand. Michael had the feeling he was being eaten alive by fleas and lice.
When they were taken up on deck, the men tried to master the infestation and their itching a bit by splashing each other with seawater. But the guards did not allow them to undress. The passengers, suffering from yawn-provoking boredom, still liked to watch when the prisoners were led out on deck. The daily “show” was almost their only distraction. Since Michael and the others went back to their berths with wet clothing, no one was surprised by the outbreak of cholera.
Lizzie was horrified when the first people died. The disease quickly took the young girl in her partition, despite Mrs. Portland’s care and the additional food all six women in the partition owed to Lizzie’s relationship with Jeremiah. She shared his presents generously and was angry that Candy did not always do the same after she disappeared with one of the sailors.
The prohibition against looking at the men could not be maintained. A lively trade quickly developed between the women on the tween deck and the lustful sailors and soldiers. Candy was in high demand and soon forgot her love back home. For that, the gin helped her more than anything. While she was good about sharing food in their common pantry, she kept the booze for herself.
The captain held a short ceremony for the dead, and then the bodies were given over to the sea—an entrancingly beautiful blue sea in which dolphins played but in which a shark fin also cut the waves, its owner hoping for prey. “It’s behind them now,” Mrs. Portland sighed. “Who knows what still lies ahead of the rest of us.”
Mrs. Portland no longer held Lizzie’s relationship with Jeremiah against her. She often asked Lizzie to accompany her when she went to visit other partitions to care for the sick. Lizzie was eager to help, and Mrs. Portland patiently instructed her in the most important tasks.
“Where did you learn all this?” Lizzie asked.
Until recently, Mrs. Portland had never said anything about her past, but she had begun to open up to Lizzie. “I helped in a Poor Law hospital,” she explained. “Out of gratitude. They patched me up often enough for free, and I don’t like to take without giving back. They need all the help they can get, especially with the women. It doesn’t feel good to be touched and bandaged by a fellow when your own has just beaten you black and blue.”
She did not say more, but Lizzie could imagine the rest. Mrs. Portland had been married—and her husband had beaten her. Had she left him and thus fallen into disrepute?
“Oh no, child, she killed him.” It was one of the patients who finally cleared it up for Lizzie. Emma Brewster was an aged prostitute who suffered from terrible pains and fluid retention in her legs. Mrs. Portland treated her with cool compresses and gin poultices. Lizzie was applying one such treatment when the subject of Mrs. Portland and her misdeed came up.
Lizzie almost dropped the gin bottle. “She did? Mrs. Portland?”
Emma Brewster nodded. “To be certain, child, I was at the trial. You know how they try us in groups. Anna Portland was up right after me. She did not do a very skillful job, as far as her defense goes. Doesn’t show a scrap of remorse. The bastard beat her over and over, she says. But she took it because she wanted to be a good and righteous woman, and who knows what all else. Till he went after her daughter. She was thirteen. He knocks her down and is standing over her, pants already open, when Anna comes into the house. So she beats him to death with the fire poker. She’s strong enough, all right. And she doesn’t regret it, she says. She’d do it agai
n. And if God don’t like it, she says, well, she can’t do nothing about that; she must just have more in common with the devil.”
Lizzie did not know whether she should laugh or cry. “Wasn’t she sentenced to death, then?” she asked.
Her patient nodded. “Of course, but it was commuted. They commute almost all the women’s sentences.”
“But, but the murderers are all on the lower deck.” Lizzie still could not believe it.
Emma Brewster rolled her eyes. “Child, they locked Anna up half a year in Newgate. They saw pretty quick that she wasn’t scum. The doctor, the reverend, everyone spoke on her behalf, to keep her in England too. That poor woman left seven children behind. The daughter she protected was the oldest. But nothing could be done. They had to send Anna overseas. The children went to the orphanage.”
Lizzie sighed. She thought of her own, unknown mother. Until then she had never thought very highly of her. To Lizzie, it was a crime to put a child on the street. But then again, perhaps her own mother had acted in the same desperation as Anna Portland had.
Chapter 3
While the Asia sailed slowly through the Doldrums—where the light winds often brought ships to a complete stop—the fever epidemic reached its high point. Though the rates of illness remained reasonable among the women on the tween deck, down below, the situation was quite different. No one in the lower deck was still able to stand.
The guards were completely overburdened by this crisis situation. At first, they still tried to force the men onto the upper deck; then they took off their chains and left them to their fate. An appeal asking the few still-capable men to care for their comrades wasn’t followed; an attempt to force them to do so was resisted. Soon, even the strongest were too weak to wash and feed the sick and dying every day.
