We tried to show him how to read and write, but he had no patience with us. I didn’t know if he was dull or just not interested, but he never remembered a thing we taught him.
Doctor Daniel saw him as a project – a boy to be reformed. ‘I’ve never met a more abandoned wretch in my life. When I was younger I just accepted that corporal punishment was the only way to impart a sense of common decency in such people. But now I know from first-hand experience this merely makes them worse. Punishing a man or boy with a thumbscrew or clapping him in iron fetters for a month isn’t going to make him want to sip tea with a dainty little finger, or talk to the vicar about the flower arrangement in the nave. He’ll still swear worse than a Billingsgate fishmonger and his soul will be even more corrupted.’
Being at sea was second nature to Richard and me, but for most of our fellow convicts it was a bewildering experience. Many of them had never been away from their town or village before they fell foul of the law. They were astonished by the sights they saw. The vast, circling albatross that sometimes shadowed our ship frightened them. I heard several say that these were birds who attacked a drowning man, pecking at his head with their vicious beaks as he struggled to stay above the surface.
The men would gather in the forecastle, when our routine permitted, to gawp at the porpoises that darted to and fro in the turbulence of our bow. Flying fish leaping from the waves amazed them, and dolphins they often took for mermaids or mermen.
The weather got warmer as we headed south. Having spent some of December the previous year around Gibraltar this was no great surprise. The further south we sailed, the more muggy and sticky it became.
There was only one stop on our journey, the island of Tenerife, where we picked up fresh water. We were all shackled again and confined below deck for the two days we spent moored at harbourside. Casewell was determined no one was going to escape.
As we journeyed south, we got to know the other convicts. Men separated from wives and children were especially devastated by their fate. They had as much chance of seeing their loved ones again as if they were dead and buried. But many of the younger men, especially those with no families of their own, were excited. Stories had filtered back to England making New South Wales sound just the place to make a fresh start. True, there were unsettling elements to these stories: the strange, savage inhabitants; the unforgiving nature of the land, which was covered in thick bush; the fiery heat of the day; the brutal iron gangs for the second offenders, chained together for years at a time. But if a man kept himself out of trouble, it seemed life promised to be quite bearable.
Much to my relief, the fearful atmosphere of the hulks was lacking aboard the Euphrates. Because of the marines and the fact that the men were under constant guard both night and day, the worst of them could not form into gangs to terrorise their weaker fellows. Ill-discipline was dealt with abruptly by Captain Casewell. Men who were insolent or violent were flogged without hesitation. Soon after Tenerife, the convoy halted to witness a public execution aboard the Navy escort HMS Adelphi. These escorts carried a small cargo of convicts and three of them had been stirring up mutiny. We were all herded on deck to witness the spectacle. Seeing these hooded figures kicking their legs in their death throes as they swung from the yardarm had a suitably aweing effect on the assembled prisoners. It was an ugly reminder of the fate we had so narrowly missed and I turned away as I couldn’t bear to watch.
Occasionally a ship would be sighted on the horizon, but none came close enough to threaten us. No doubt our Navy escort kept them away. I had heard that some pirate ships off the North African coast hunted for slaves to man their galleys. The life of a galley slave, chained to an oar and worked to death, filled my sleep with nightmares until I knew in my bones we were far south enough to be well out of their clutches.
During the long nights locked in the cells, gambling mania gripped the convicts. We would hear the arguments and wails of despair from other cells as men lost their shirts or rations. They would bet anything they had. One man even lost his wedding ring.
Richard and I would have been tempted, if we had been in more disreputable company. We could see the attraction in this illicit activity. But Dan would not hear of it. We still got dragged into the craze, though. Little things in our cabin started to go missing. A quill Doctor Dan used to write his journal, my belt, the laces on Richard’s shoes. There could only be one culprit, Johnny Onions. Dan sat him down and gave him a stern talking to. He confessed. Johnny had been trading these bits and bobs with the more determined gamblers in return for extra food. Even though he promised to stop I never trusted him again. If he had stolen my mother’s ring, I would have cheerfully strangled him.
‘We could have had far worse,’ said Richard, looking over the forecastle to two lads the same age as us named Eddie Clark and Ben Sommers. London boys they were, and pickpockets. They strutted around like Cockney lords. Quick to take offence and quick to throw their weight around, they looked down on the mere thieves among them.
‘Any fool can steal a waistcoat from a shop or a pound of cheese from a market stall,’ scoffed Ben. ‘It takes years of practice to pick a pocket.’
‘Didn’t do you any good in the end though, did it?’ said Richard.
As the voyage wore on, the Captain frequently invited Doctor Daniel to dine with him. Dan was impressed with Casewell’s good judgement.
‘He can’t abide Privett, and no wonder, the man’s a bloody idiot. And the Lieutenant, Holkham, is a thug despite his fancy manners. He came straight from a slave trader, so that tells you exactly what manner of man he is. But the Captain’s determined to keep the ship clean and his ‘cargo’ healthy. He wants to keep us all well exercised, despite the protests of the Lieutenant. If he had his way, we’d all be marched round the deck twice a day, and double-ironed for the whole voyage.’
I hoped the Captain stayed well. If he died, then Holkham would take command. We were a heartbeat away from reliving Swales’ previous journey to Australia. As things stood, some days aboard the Euphrates were surprisingly pleasant. When the sun shone and the sea was calm we would gather on the weather deck and pass the time with charades or mock trials. Sometimes we would fish with hook and line. I was always thrilled when the line grew tight in my hand. Everyone cheered when one of us managed to reel in a catch.
Sitting on the deck in the sunshine it was easy to forget I was on my way to exile on the far side of the world. Still, the voyage was not without its troubles. As we sailed on, the ship began to show its age. Water seeped steadily through the strakes and we were constantly employed in caulking the planking. The hold was frequently awash with water after stormy weather, and a rota was set up for the convicts to man the pumps. Most of the men seemed to relish the idea of doing hard exercise. ‘You need to be fit and strong where we’re going,’ Joseph Swales told us.
Despite our attempts to keep the ship clean it still stank, and after a spell of bad weather the smell of vomit seemed to permeate its very fibre. This problem became worse when the Euphrates entered the tropical latitudes and we were becalmed north of the Equator. Rats and insects thrived in the enervating heat and even Privett became concerned that some outbreak of contagious disease was inevitable. Windsails were rigged to direct air below decks, and gunpowder mixed with oil of tar and lime was exploded to sweeten the air.
After those dull, listless days sailing across the Equator, we began to pick up fresher winds as we reached the Southern Ocean. These waters were unknown to me and Swales told us to expect the worst. When the storms came, the Euphrates was dwarfed by massive green waves. I had never felt so small and insignificant a speck on the surface of our planet. During a storm even the most villainous of our fellows would get down on his knees and pray for God to deliver him.
The weeks went by. The sails billowed, the rigging creaked and the bow ploughed through the waves, but we seemed forever in the same place sailing towards the same unchanging horizon. It was as if the world was turning
too fast for us to catch up with it.
I became desperately bored. In the Navy I had got used to living a life where every day could be my last, and on the hulk I had to be constantly wary of dangerous men. Casewell’s ship was so well managed death had become an outside possibility rather than a daily threat. There were few books aboard to while away the hours. Instead, the ship was well supplied with religious tracts such as Two Hundred Exercises Against Lying, Dissuasions from Stealing and Caution to Swearers. I avidly read Exhortation to Chastity and discovered that it was not just men who were tempted by the sins of the flesh.
As we sailed through the Southern Ocean several of us decided to fill our time by putting on a play. After a fortnight’s rehearsals we performed The Beggar’s Opera, with screeching accompaniment from the ship’s makeshift band. Richard and I took the parts of Betty Doxy and Polly Peachum.
At the end of the play Lizzie Borrow came up to us and said, ‘Well done boys, a most convincing performance,’ before she was hurriedly escorted away. The Captain, it appeared, was not so impressed. Dan later told us Casewell had thought the tale of the highwayman Macheath and his escape from the gallows was too subversive, and had decided at once that there would be no more plays.
Lizzie’s compliments left us feeling as high as kites. And after that our interest in her blossomed. We would watch her walking the deck when we were up in the yards or working on the bowsprit. Several times up in the rigging we both avoided certain death by a hairs-breadth, because we were not paying proper attention to our work. She walked alone, or with her maid or one of the ship’s officers. Sometimes she looked earnest when she talked, other times she giggled and seemed playful. I longed to talk with her and discover what she was really like.
She was a tall girl, as tall as Richard at least, and had a mane of thick curly hair. Her face was a source of constant wonder. She had quite a prominent nose. Not trim and petite, but strong. Strong but well shaped. Great big eyes and a sulky, pouting mouth. ‘She not sulky, she’s just bored,’ said Richard who would not hear a thing said against her. ‘She just needs the company of a young man her own age, like me!’ One time, when Richard and I were in the forecastle, she walked away from us along the deck with the sun behind her. We could see right through her thin cotton dress. Neither of us breathed or blinked until she disappeared down the companionway back to her quarters.
The voyage dragged on. Captain Casewell made great attempts to keep up the morale of his crew and cargo. Classes were held in reading and writing, and Richard and I helped our fellow convicts write letters home. Doctor Dan gave interesting talks on the behaviour of animals, Richard told us all about life in Boston. He talked perfectly well until he noticed Lizzie had joined the audience right at the back, with Captain Casewell. Then he began to stumble, and there were long pauses between his sentences. He would have dried up altogether had not Doctor Dan and I kept asking him questions to keep him going.
Daily inspections were introduced to keep the ship as clean as possible, and in the long summer evenings prisoners were allowed to stay on deck till ten o’clock at night. There was singing and even dancing, and some of the convicts were so wild I wondered fearfully what they would be like when they had a drink inside them. It was extraordinary how the character of a captain could affect the whole ship. Casewell believed in reward rather than punishment, and the better the convicts behaved, the more freedom they were given. The worst of them had realised their best hope of survival lay in keeping out of mischief. In the last two months of the voyage only two men were flogged, and then given the minimum punishment of twelve lashes.
Almost no voyage of this length passes without fatalities. The wife of one of the marines died in childbirth together with her baby. The whole crew was badly affected for a week after. The poor husband was left with two young boys to raise alone. Three of the convicts died of a wasting disease, and one of the crew fell from the rigging. But no contagious diseases swept our ranks. Luck was with us on this ship and I began to fear the moment when we would make landfall in the strange new world that was our destination.
Chapter 8
The Far Distant Land
After what seemed an endless journey through the Southern Ocean, we sighted land at last in early November. For weeks we sailed close to the shore around the southern coast and I started to gain some understanding of exactly how big this country was. Staring out at the dense green land we could see nothing but forest or bush. There was sometimes smoke from bush fires, but no sign of life. I thought at least we would see small villages along the coast, or perhaps a party of natives would row out to throw spears or sell us food. But nothing of this sort happened.
It was early December when we rounded the most easterly point of the land, and our little fleet turned north. Christmas was three weeks away but it was hotter than any August day I had ever known. The brilliant sunshine and endless, uninhabited green coast unsettled me. On a globe I knew that New South Wales was down there at the bottom. Summer and winter were the wrong way round here and the stars back to front in the sky. This was a world turned upside down.
We were sorting oakum on deck during a hot afternoon when a lookout called, ‘Smoke ahoy!’ We rushed to the forecastle. There in the distance were several thin trails of smoke rising into the still summer air. These were from chimneys or small open fires, rather than smoke from blazing bush. Then our lookout spotted the sails of a ship heading towards us.
By early evening the ship had met with us, and sent out a boat with several marines and officials. At once all prisoners were sent below deck and we listened intently to hear what was going on.
‘Are any of your crew or prisoners suffering from contagious disease?’ shouted an unfamiliar voice.
‘No sir, they are not,’ replied the Captain confidently.
I realised our voyage was almost over. All at once I was both fearful and excited. Feelings I had kept hidden during the journey began to well up. Who would we meet in this new world? What would it feel like to live here? Would there be good people among the bad? After so long aboard the Euphrates it would be wonderful to walk on dry land and eat fresh food. But I felt resentment too, being so far from home. Richard felt exactly the same way.
‘This could be a great adventure, Sam, or it could be a terrible nightmare.’
The ship that came to meet us left a pilot on board who was to guide us into Sydney. Although most of the prisoners were confined to their cells, Richard and I were called upon to help sail the ship into the harbour. It was a beautiful evening and we arrived just as the sun was setting.
For months we had seen nothing but the sea or silent coast. But for our own little convoy and the occasional passing vessel we could have believed we were the last people left on earth. Now, for the first time on this immense continent, I saw evidence of a human hand on the landscape. Standing next to each other, high in the sails, Richard and I had a splendid view of the settlement. As we turned into a substantial inlet, a tall clock tower and the roofs of some buildings on higher ground could be seen. Then, the spindly sails of a couple of windmills, followed by the whole spread of the town, which was small but densely packed along the shoreline of a bay. Having noted how thickly the forest grew along the coast, I was awed to see how much had been cleared to make this settlement. In front of us were carefully laid out streets and houses, and grand government buildings. On the western side of the inlet were more humble abodes, all higgledy-piggledy on the rocks. Here, at the furthest reach, a coal-fire beacon flickered in the sea breeze, and a battery of long guns pointed menacingly out over the harbour entrance.
On the other side of the bay I noticed scores of little lights floating on the water. This looked magical. Next to us in the rigging was a leathery sea dog called Isaac who had been here several times already. A telescope hung at his waist and I borrowed it to peer through the gloom. There were several small canoes, and the lights seemed to be fires burning in the centre of each vessel. Aboard, two to a boat, wer
e lithe black men – one piloting with some skill, the other casting a line into the water. Isaac took a look too. He told me the men cooked the fish right there in their canoes.
‘Clever buggers,’ he said with some admiration. ‘They make those canoes from tree bark and place a slab of mud down in the middle and build a fire on it. It’s not easy lighting and keeping a fire on a small boat. And look at him, standing up to do his fishing. It’s a wonder the boat don’t capsize.’
We watched in silence then Isaac spoke again. ‘There’s been trouble with them natives ever since we first got here. Some say they’re no better than vermin, and shoot them if they can. Some of the natives kill any of our men they catch alone. I’d keep well away from them.’
He seemed torn in his reaction to these dark-skinned men. ‘I’ve been all over the world on my travels,’ he told us. ‘Everywhere I’ve been – from Zanzibar to Timor to Bombay – the natives have made the land their own. They’ve built cities and farmed the soil, and have nabobs or shahs or sultans to rule them. They speak a common tongue and have a common God. They have armies and laws and rules. But not the natives here, boys. They talk all right, in a funny grunty language, but this lot here will speak a different tongue from another lot just a day’s walk away. They don’t seem to like each other much either. Most of the time they laze around, doing nothing all day. But now and then they get angry about something and start attacking another bunch.’
We were both fascinated and begged him to tell us more.
His brow furrowed. ‘What else can I tell you? They live on the land like animals, grazing on fruit and berries, hunting or fishing when they need flesh in their bellies. They have no buildings. When they need shelter they take bark from the trees and make a little haven. No one can tell what manner of god they worship. Just when you begin to wonder if they’re some kind of cunning, hairless monkey they’ll take out a spear and hurl it with a sling, fast and true, and with a reach much greater than any of us could throw. And they have these curved wooden throwing sticks which they use to bring down birds and land animals. The thing spins in the air, and if it misses it spins back to the man who threw it. I never seen a monkey do that.’
Prison Ship Page 8
