by Jean Plaidy
“Why should we? We are human beings, are we not?”
“We ain’t ‘uman beings, lady! We are only the poor!” The woman’s eyes were like sloes, her teeth hideous yellow-brown stumps, her breath foul, her head alive with lice.
Kitty said: “Now, sir! You flatter! Do you think then that I was born yesterday?”
Flash Jane burst into paroxysms of laughter; she slapped Carolan on the back.
“Quite the lady, eh?
“Now, sir! You flatter! Do you think I was born yesterday?” She leaned forward and peered into Kitty’s face.
“Yesterday! Oh, no, me lady … a good four and forty years ago, I’d be saying!”
Carolan pushed her off fiercely.
“Keep away!”
“All right! All right! We ain’t so used to the quality, you know … If I don’t get a drop of gin soon I’ll go stark crazy!”
“Go crazy if you like.” said Carolan.
“But keep your distance.”
Esther put out a warning hand. The woman crept up to Carolan, and put her evil-smelling face close to hers. Carolan gave her a push which sent her sprawling. Someone laughed. Eyes watched with interest, hoping for a little trouble to relieve the gloom.
But Flash Jane was not ready for a fight. Though, she thought, a few years back I’d have scratched the eyes out of the little she-cat. But today the she-cat was too much for her… young claws are sharp. Flash Jane turned her attention to the misshapen child beside her and began laying about her with fury.
“Snickering at me, snickering, are you? Take that, you imp! Take that!”
Flash Jane was soon exhausted. The girl whimpered and Flash Jane lay growling like a wild animal which has successfully fooled its fellows into thinking it is stronger than it is.
Somewhere in the gangway two middle-aged women began to dance; they took off their rags, bit by bit, until they were naked: and there they danced together amorously, lewdly, and the fetid hole of the women’s quarters was filled with ribald laughter.
“I do declare,” said Kitty, and Carolan had to put her ear close to her mother’s mouth, so great was the noise, “I do declare that I could have rivalled Sarah Siddons … Listen … the applause … listen …”
The hatchway was thrown open suddenly. The eyes of the convicts were bright with interest. The monotony of the first days at sea was being broken at last.
“All on deck!” shouted a voice.
“What is it?” said Carolan, excited as the others.
“A hundred lashes apiece!” chortled an old woman.
“Your back will be like a piece of butcher’s meat before they be finished with you!”
“What do you know!” said a tall, gaunt woman who seemed to be something of an authority among the convicts.
“I can tell you. We’re well out to sea. It is “all on deck” for the striking off of out irons!”
Carolan began to cry weakly.
“Thank God! Thank God!” She sprang up onto the berth.
“Mamma! Mamma! They are going to strike off the irons. Now you will be well again!”
But Kitty lay in a heap, her eyes closed, her body cold, and Carolan, shaken with a sudden horrible fear, knew that it was too late, for whether or not the irons were struck off could mean nothing to Kitty now.
The sun beat down incessantly, pitilessly upon the ship, and there was no breath of wind to help her on her way. She lay, as though exhausted, her timbers creaking as she rolled and lurched: her sails flapped against her masts as though they reproached themselves for their uselessness. Birds cruised about her; in the glittering water a shark moved silently. There was an air of weariness abroad; there was a relaxing of discipline. On their part of the deck, shut in by barricades, the convicts lay about in groups, seeking a little shade from the merciless sun. The heat was so intense, they just lay about, too languid to talk very much; they looked a dirty, docile collection of tamed animals on this tropical afternoon. On the other side of the barricade the sentry sat yawning. He had walked up and down, musket over his shoulder, until he could bear no more. What need to guard convicts in such weather! Who would want to do anything but seek a bit of shade and sleep on such an afternoon?
The men had had their two hours exercise; some had stayed on deck, sleeping, drowsing; and there had been no attempt to send them back to their stifling quarters. The Marines had possibly been too weary themselves to assert discipline. However, there lay Marcus, and beside him, Carolan and Esther. They were talking eagerly, for though they had caught occasional glimpses of each other they had not been able to converse in all the months since they had left Portsmouth.
Marcus said: “Ah! Thank God for a calm! Look at that sentry! The man’s yawning his head off. I’ll warrant there isn’t a soldier on the ship who is not more concerned with taking forty winks than guarding a cargo of miserable convicts!”
“Marcus!” said Carolan.
“You are not thinking…”
Esther burst in: “It would be most dangerous. They say that terrible things are done to those who try to mutiny.”
“Bless you both!” said Marcus.
“I plan no mutiny. I am awaiting the journey’s end complacently. What chance would mutiny have here, think you? We should be caught, flogged and sent to solitary confinement. I know what it means!”
Carolan raised herself and looked at him. He seemed, she thought, impervious to misery. His grey convict clothes were filthy; he was unwashed, his hair matted, his skin grimy: but his startling blue eyes were bluer in the tropics than they had been under London skies; they seemed to borrow their colour from the cloudless sky and the brilliant ocean; and they were as unfathomable as the sky, as dazzling as the sea, and as unconquerable.
Carolan thought, I must make the most of this time I spend with him. I must discover what it is that makes him so hopeful, so courageous. I must borrow some of his hopefulness, borrow some of his courage.
She told him brokenly of Kitty’s death.
“Oh, Marcus, she lay there for so long. They left her beside us … and in that hot and frightful place … Oh, Marcus, I cannot talk of it; it was hell. My Mamma … my beautiful Mammal If you could have seen her in her Haredon days … in front of her mirror, with Therese trying a ribbon against her hair … and then, there in the stinking hold of a prison ship, herself no longer, just a decaying body …”
Marcus put his hand over hers; so did Esther, and the hands of Marcus and Esther met. They smiled at each other, as they comforted Carolan.
“You must not think of it, darling.” said Marcus.
“It may be better so.”
“That is what I say,” said Esther.
“Esther has talked to me of Providence and happy releases until I could scream. Marcus, please do not you talk like that!”
“I will not. But I will say this, Carolan. She is well out of it. What do you think would have happened to her on the other side?”
“I do not know,” said Carolan.
“How should I know? What will happen to us?”
“We can bear it,” said Marcus, ‘because we are younger, and when we are young we look forward; it is the ageing who look back. What have you, Carolan, or you, Esther, to look back to? What have I? We must therefore look forward. We are luckier than those who have lived well and fallen on evil days. Hope is a happier companion than regrets.”
“Oh, I do agree! I do agree!” said Esther.
Tell us, Marcus,” insisted Carolan, ‘what we must expect when we get there.”
He was silent; his blue eyes watched an albatross rise from the water. He reached for Carolan’s hand, and his fingers curled about hers.
“How should I know!” said Marcus.
“Nevertheless, you do.” said Carolan.
“You have been before, have you not?”
“But the treatment of women is not the same as that of men.”
“And you of course never spoke to a woman the whole of your time. That was like yo
u, Marcus, never to speak to a woman!”
He moved closer to her; his eyes smiled at her.
Esther said: “Oh, Carolan! How can you … when he … has been so kind to us!”
“His kindness to us does not alter the fact, Esther,” said Carolan.
“I do not believe that Marcus has never heard the story of a female convict’s adventures. For after all, would she not be eager to talk of them to her … friends?” She paused.
“And I would rather know the worst … or perhaps the best, for I swear my experiences of the last months have led me to expect no haven of rest … nothing indeed but misery and starvation and humiliation.”
“I know little,” said Marcus, “but I will tell you what I do know. An advertisement announcing your arrival will be sent out “A cargo of females …” and those who want servants will come aboard and choose.”
“There will be no alternative but to be chosen for a servant?”
“There will be other alternatives.”
“Do you think they will try to separate us?”
“You may be lucky and keep together.”
“And if we are not chosen?”
“Well, then you will be sent to the factory a sort of clearing house. You will be put to work sooner or later.”
“For seven years!” said Carolan.
“I shall be twenty-four before I am free … it seems a lifetime.”
“Bah!” said Marcus.
“What is seven years!”
“When I think how different my life might have been, had I never run away from Haredon…”
“Bah!” said Marcus again.
“How different all our lives might have been, had we not done this and that!”
“Mine could not have been more wretched!” said Carolan bitterly.
He let his fingers touch her wrist.
“Never despair, Carolan. How do you know what is waiting?”
She turned her head and looked into his eyes. They were burning with desire for her. She looked away quickly, but she was thrilled. No! She was not despairing. It was good to know that Marcus was her friend.
She shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun.
Esther said: “Good and evil are so oddly mixed. But for the heat we should not be together again, the three of us!”
“Oh, Esther! How sweet you are! Then it means something to you, if not to this hard-hearted Carolan. that I am here to talk with you!” Carolan said: “Marcus, tell us what happened to you when you got there before.”
“I was a fool in those days. I was over-bold, not cautious enough. I got myself into a deal of trouble. I spent three months in the hulks before I sailed. I loathed the hulks. Why, here you do feel you are getting somewhere; you are moving all the time; you come on deck; you see the sea; you are aware-of the motion. But a prison hulk is belli It was for me. I was a rebel in those days, and looked upon as a troublesome prisoner. One day, dear Carolan, and you too. sweet Esther, if you can bear the sight. I will show you the scars across my back. I could not count the lashes I have had.”
Esther was blushing; Carolan scowled at him. and his answer to the scowl was a mischievous smile.
“Solitary confinement in total darkness! It drove some of them insane. I survived it. Oh, God! What a fool I was in my young days! And then I arrived and immediately planned escape. Oh. my youthful folly! Now. hope is good when there is some sound possibility to support it, but when it is propped up by folly it is disastrous. Never nurture that sort of hope. Carolan. nor you Esther! I do not think you would, Esther, but my sweet Carolan who is so like what I was at her age might be tempted to do so.”
“Oh, I am a fool of course!” said Carolan.
“With the devil’s own temper. Odd … how one loves these foibles!”
“You were telling us..” said Carolan.
“Yes, my lady, I was telling you. I tried to escape. I was brought back. I was given a thousand lashes … and I was put alone on an island outside the bay from which escape was impossible. The sea was infested with sharks. There was no shade from the sun, nor shelter against the cold night. My food was bread and water, towed out to me each week. I thought I died a thousand deaths on that island, dear children, but it was only one foolish boy who died, and in his place was born a wiser man. I was brought back from there, and worked in a road party -which meant that I lodged in barracks and tramped daily to work. I worked hard and became an overseer. I earned a little tobacco. But the devil was in me and was not sufficiently caged, so I tried escape once more; and when I was caught, I worked in a chain gang, and that, my dears, was a living hell if ever there was one! The chains about my legs were never removed for an instant. I still bear the scars of those days about my body: but I learned much that was profitable.”
“And the next time you escaped you were successful!”
“Third time lucky. But you see, here I am… and this time it is a lifer!”
Esther said earnestly: “You would not try again?”
He smiled at her lazily, and tenderly.
“I do not know, Esther. But this I can say. There would have to be a very good chance of escape before I took it I am wiser now, but perhaps not really as wise as I shall be in five years time. That is the compensation of growing old, is it not? Wisdom accompanies the grey hairs, the flagging steps.”
“What a moralizer you are.” said Carolan.
“Tell us about the chain gang.”
“It is ugly telling.”
Esther shivered.
“Nevertheless,” said Carolan, “I wish to know the truth. I never want anything dressed up to look pretty any more. Tell us, Marcus.”
“No,” he said.
“Not before Esther.”
“Oh, Esther is too squeamish! It is her way of looking at life. God is good! she says, when she sees the beauties in the world. When she sees the squalor and the wickedness, she looks the other way or forgets God had a hand in that too!”
“Don’t be harsh with Carolan, Esther; try to understand our Carolan. She has suffered much; it hardens her…”
“Be silent!” cried Carolan fiercely.
“But I thought you wanted to hear my adventures with the chain gang!”
“But you prefer not to tell in front of Esther.”
“Ah!” He laughed a little, and his eyes were burning in his face.
“I am between two fires, you see. How I long to please you both! And Dammed, I will. Carolan, we will leave Esther dozing here, and we will move just out of earshot, and I will talk to you of what you want to know.” His hand was about her wrist, burning hot.
“Come,” he said.
“Come on.”
“I am not all that eager to hear.”
“Carolan.” he said.
“Come, please. At any moment now we shall be sent back to our holes. Carolan… please …”
“And you are eager that I should know of all the horrors that await us on our arrival?”
“I think it is better to have your eyes open… if you are strong enough to bear what you see.”
He drew her a little along the deck. The exertion of the movement was exhausting.
“Carolan, I had to speak to you alone.”
“Of the chain gang?”
“That is past history. I had to talk of us.”
“Oh. Why?”
“All these months I have longed to talk with you. I cannot talk in front of Esther.”
“And yet, when she is there, you look at her as though you could bare your soul to her!”
“You are jealous, my sweet child.”
“Jealous! I? I was about to say you may practise your acts on whom you will, but I will not have them practised on Esther! Do you not recognize innocence when you see it? Esther is a romantic little fool. She does not see you as you are, nor does she see me as I am. You are a sort of Robin Hood… the sort who robs the rich to help the poor. What poor did your thieving eve: help?”
“William Henry Jedborough
, alias Marcus Markham of course! He was excessively poor.”
“You put on a different personality for different people, do you not? To Esther you are the philosopher. To me you are the charming rogue. At least you think you are charming.”
“And you do not?”
“I only know you for the rogue you are! Oh, Marcus… I did not mean that… not entirely. It was so good of you to buy us that room in Newgate.”
“Even though you would not enter into a bargain with me, eh?”
“To me you pretend to be very, very bad, and to Esther you try to appear a sinner struggling towards righteousness. I do not believe you are either one or the other. Why did you try to make that stupid bargain, and then show dearly that you did not mean it?”
“I hoped you would fall into temptation.”
“And what satisfaction would you have had from it?”
“Enormous satisfaction. I love you. Carolan.”
“And you thought that your miserable money…” ‘… would have brought your submission! Come, Carolan, you know you hesitated.”
“I did not!”
“You did. I saw it in your eyes. And how hope leaped in my savage breast!”
“I would rather you did not joke about the matter.”
“Often a joke will hide our most serious feelings.”
“Please do not be so sententious. I am not Esther!”
“No darling Carolan. The time is passing, and we are wasting precious moments in quarrelling. I love you, Carolan. I want… some hope that some day. on the other side… you and I…”
“What?”
“Convicts whose conduct is exemplary are allowed to marry.”
“You are suggesting that I should marry you!”
“Please do not look as though the idea is repugnant to you, Carolan.”
“I should be sorry for your wife. You would not be faithful to her for a week.”
“If she were you, Carolan, I should be faithful to her for the rest of my life.”
“Your conversational powers are truly miraculous, Marcus! I doubt whether you have ever been at a loss to say the right thing. Still, I fear long practice in the art of deceiving poor females who want to be deceived has made you such an expert.”
“The last months have made you cruel.”
