by John Marsden
Given the deterioration in my health, and mindful of the terrible stories about the Hulks, and the death rates of the convicts aboard them, I was well aware that my chances of survival would not have been enhanced by any time spent in those floating coffins.
I parted from Joshua with much sadness. It seemed that my life was punctuated by separations. I had lost my parents at an early age, it seemed likely that I would never see Quentin in this world again, and now I had to say farewell to Joshua. He clung to me with much affection, and there were tears between us, but soon enough I was torn away and marched to the tumbrel which was to take me to Portsmouth Royal Harbour.
My only previous experience on water was in the boat belonging to Silas Piggott, as he and Thomas and I rowed up and down the Thames. I had never seen a harbour as fine as Portsmouth. It fair took my breath away, to look out over so much water, and the pretty houses of the town. We rolled in to the harbour area through a fine-looking gateway, under a wrought-iron arch, and on past the ropehouse and the great storehouses where the Navy kept everything from candles to anchors. We got a commentary as we went along, from one of our number who had grown up in Portsmouth, and though he was in all likelihood doomed never to see the place again, he boasted about its splendours as though he had built most of it himself.
He showed us where they had hung a man called Jack the Painter, not so long ago, in 1777. There was considerable interest among our number at this information. I had never heard of Jack the Painter, but I was alone in that regard. It seemed that he had been on the side of the Yankees in their infamous war against us, and he had led a campaign to burn down naval buildings, including the Portsmouth ropehouse. Our guide showed us where they had hung him, just inside the big gateway. They did it off a ship’s mast that they put up especially for the occasion. Sixty feet high, the highest gallows ever erected in England! Twenty thousand people were on hand to watch him swing.
‘My word, they did him proud then,’ said one old lag upon receipt of this intelligence.
‘Yes indeed, that’s what I call a send-off,’ said another.
‘It’d be worth getting hung, for a crowd like that,’ cackled the oldest among us.
I include this exchange in case the reader should be in any doubt as to the character of the old reprobates who were on their way out of the country. I am sorry to say they were as hardened a lot of villains as could be found in the length and breadth of England.
We came to the harbour, with an array of vessels the like of which I had never seen before. Our party fell silent as we passed the Hulks, for they had Hulks in Portsmouth too, and most of our number had come straight from the ones in London. Their talk of their experiences was bitter indeed, and I again gave thanks that I had not been consigned to one of these floating houses of misery.
The vessel to which we were assigned for our voyage to the other side of the world was the Admiral Barrington. They put down a ramp so we could walk straight off the back of the tumbrel. We would have had some difficulty otherwise, for every man jack of us was shackled with an iron collar and an iron chain run through a ring in each collar, which fastened us all together.
We were lined up along the wharf so that those who wanted to piss, which was pretty much everyone, could do so, straight into the water. ‘That’s a good way to say goodbye to this cursed country,’ said the man next to me as he did up his flies.
Then up another ramp we went, and on board. A few sailors lounged on the deck, watching us, making derisory comments, as a file of soldiers belonging to a regiment called the New South Wales Corps supervised the loading. The soldiers, unlike their maritime counterparts, looked extremely vigilant; according to some of my fellow convicts there had been mutinies, successful and unsuccessful, on transport ships in the past, so they were alert for the slightest sign of trouble.
Three men stood at the top of the ramp to check us off as we boarded. Our neck collars were replaced by leg shackles, which I found heavy and uncomfortable. I had to adjust my gait to accommodate them, but if truth be told, I preferred them to the neck collars.
We passed along the deck, where we were issued with supplies for the trip. We each received two sets of clothing, on which were written a number, which in my case was 227, a number which I will never forget to my dying day, as it was to represent my identity in the months to come. One set of clothing was further labelled with the letter A and the other with the letter B, to signify which set was to be worn in alternating weeks. We were to begin with the set marked A. The clothing consisted of two blue jackets, two pairs of trousers, two shirts, two pairs of stockings, and a cap. Those who already had clothes that were in a decent state of repair were allowed to keep them, but I was not in such a fortunate position. We also received a pair of shoes, a blanket, a pillow, a large round mess tin, and a tin knife, fork and spoon, as well as a biscuit for lunch.
The soldiers subsequently assembled us in an area on the main deck, where after a short interval the captain of the Admiral Barrington appeared, to address us. He cut a fine figure in his uniform and I immediately formed a boyish wish to be like him, to be able to dress in such finery and guide the ship through storms and shoals and pirate attacks, and to have every man on board jump to attention as I passed. Not a realistic ambition, I fear, for one who had proved himself to be nothing but a delinquent and reprobate. Still, even the worst of us have dreams of goodness and glory, both temporal and spiritual, and I was no exception.
Master Robert Marsh had another advantage over me: he was evidently a gentleman; he spoke in a most refined manner, saying that he had no desire other than to get us to Botany Bay in the shortest time and in the most humane manner possible. He said that if we conducted ourselves with decency and decorum we should reap the benefits; for one thing he would strike the irons off those who demonstrated that they merited it, and as soon as possible. A murmur of approval ran through our group at these words. He also told us that divine service would be read every Sunday, an announcement that I must say was met with general indifference, especially compared to the news about the irons.
‘But know you this,’ Master Marsh went on to say, raising his voice, ‘I give you my word that any man who stirs up trouble or makes himself disagreeable will be flogged at the yardarm here, or worse if it be deserved. Be in no doubt about the discipline on this vessel; my officers and I run matters on board the Admiral Barrington with precision and exactitude.’
He then yielded his position to a certain Peter Gossam, whom Master Marsh introduced to us as the surgeon superintendent appointed for the voyage. Surgeon Gossam spoke briefly and to the point, telling us to keep ourselves and our quarters clean, to have no truck with vice, and to refrain from gambling. He said that after we had been at sea three weeks we would be administered an ounce of lime juice and an ounce of sugar daily, for the prevention of scurvy, as well as three quarts of water daily, and three gills of good Spanish red wine a week. He said the rations were adequate and of decent quality, and that there would be a daily sick parade for those who required his services. ‘I will take good care of any who fall ill,’ he promised. ‘But I will have no patience with malingerers. I believe that at the conclusion of this voyage you will be able to say that you have little to complain of.’
‘You just watch us,’ muttered the man to my left.
Then we were sent below decks. There was, I think, a sense of anxious anticipation, as every man, upon reaching the bottom of the ladder, strained to peer into the darkness to see the accommodation he would be occupying for the next uncountable months. I was of course no exception, but I could see little at first, after the bright light of the sun beating down on Portsmouth Harbour. I had to grope my way along a narrow thoroughfare whilst a soldier yelled at me to ‘get a bloody move on’.
The place felt absolutely stifling. It was hot and airless, and smelled of rancid urine, of feet and armpits, of farts and faeces, to name but a few of the odou
rs my delicate senses could distinguish. After Newgate I was somewhat more inured to such a stench than I might have been previously, but I still struggled with the revulsion that manifested itself in my stomach. I am almost ashamed to say that within a couple of days I no longer noticed the smell below decks, except when we had been up above, in the open, experiencing fresh air, and subsequently had to return to the accommodation kindly provided for us by His Majesty.
We, the newest and last group of convicts to be boarded for the trip, were allocated the rear of the vessel, the stern, which was at least illuminated by three candles, enabling me to see our quarters reasonably clearly.
A soldier looked at the number 227 on the clothes I had been issued, then pushed me towards a hammock with the corresponding number painted on it. ‘And if you foul it you’ll sleep in your filth for the rest of the voyage,’ he added.
I should perhaps pause for a moment to say something of these soldiers of the New South Wales Corps. The old lags on board the ship, many of whom had known no other life than one of crime, seemed to know more about courts, sentencing, prisons, transportation and the like than the Home Secretary, the Attorney General, and the Lord Chief Justice combined. According to them, the Corps which now had charge of us was formed by a man named Major Grose, who held to the principle that the best candidates for the positions of supervising convicts were convicts themselves. Acting on that principle he collected as dissolute a mob of riffraff as could be found outside the walls of Newgate. As well as ex-convicts they included soldiers from other regiments who had committed felonies or misdemeanours sufficient to have them imprisoned in the Navy Hulk, and soldiers who had been ordered to India and would take any assignment in preference to that dreaded fever-hole.
Of course I had none of this information as we boarded the Admiral Barrington, but it was apparent from the start that the manner adopted by the soldiers was at odds with that exemplified by Master Marsh and Surgeon Gossam.
That was of no great concern to me during my first hours on board. There was too much to look at, to learn, to try to understand. I placed my few meagre possessions, so recently issued, under the hammock, as everyone else seemed to be doing, then – not without some difficulty – climbed into its embrace. It swayed a little but I found it quite comfortable. Within a few days I was leaping in and out of it with as much agility as the monkeys in the Tower of London menagerie.
Once in it, I looked around. This was the first bed in my life that I could truly call my own. We each had eighteen inches width for our hammocks. They were so close to each other that a grown man could reach across each of my neighbours and touch the man beyond him. Even with my short arms I could almost achieve this feat.
My first thought, as my eyes gradually accustomed themselves to the dim light, was to see if there were any boys my own age, but I was sadly disappointed. I could see three or four young hobbledehoys, but on past experience I considered them more likely to be a nuisance to me than anything else. This was a shipload of men. Men, and one boy.
I did not have the courage to speak to the fellow on my right, a big, bearded, intimidating man named Holt, who had said little during the trip on the tumbrel from London. He sucked on a small black pipe most of the time, even though it contained no baccy. Occasionally he glanced at me with a malevolent expression, much as a man will look at a rancid sausage before he hurls it into the gutter.
Looking at Holt, I felt that he was a desperate man indeed, and I resolved to keep well out of his way, if such a thing were possible in the confined space we occupied.
On my left was an older fellow, whose name I did not know then but later found out was one which was very strange to my ears, that of Pierre De Lafontaine. From his conversation on the tumbrel I believed that he had been sentenced to transportation for forging and uttering a promissory note, an offence unknown to me, but which seemed to have something to do with a counterfeit letter he had used to obtain release from imprisonment for debt.
Our quarters could fairly be called spartan. I had been pleased to see a stove and funnel between decks as I descended the ladder, and not far from my hammock were two swing stoves, with buckets of charcoal in hoops fastened to the wall. Hung up on walls were three posters, one of which listed the duties of the convicts who were to be appointed ‘captains of the deck’, ‘captains of the mess’, and so forth; another of which listed the procedures for divine service on Sundays, as well as the cleaning of the deck, the cutting up and cooking of meat rations, the washing of clothes and bedding and our own selves; and the third of which listed every imaginable offence that could be committed on board, with the penalties that could be expected in consequence of any breach of them. Flogging seemed to be the punishment most frequently adopted, and having a mortal fear of such a fate, I resolved upon reading the list of offences to do my utmost to avoid every last one of them.
Many conversations with transported convicts over the years have taught me that one thing is common to all, no matter when they arrived in the colony nor what ship brought them nor who was the captain or surgeon of the vessel. Some experienced kind and considerate treatment, some experienced treatment harsh and brutal, some had a calm passage and some a stormy, some shared the ship with women convicts so that their voyage was one of licentiousness and depravity . . . but even these last shared in the universal tale that the monotony of the voyage was almost unendurable.
I began to feel this even on that first afternoon. To begin with, everything was new and fascinating to me: I found the soft rocking of the boat as she lay at anchor strangely comforting, I liked the creaking of the timbers, I relished the sensation of having my very own bed. Already I was becoming accustomed to the stench. But the conversations of my companions, although amusing at times, were repeating the themes I had heard on the tumbrel between London and Portsmouth, not to mention in the commons of Newgate. There was no room to run, as Quentin and I had often done through the streets of London.
Once I had inspected our living quarters and read as much of the posters as I could understand, there was little else to look at. And there was certainly nothing to do. It was hard to form any sense of purpose, because our existence was essentially purposeless. Our only function was to be transported. Those three words, ‘to be transported’, suggest a passivity which accurately reflected our condition. We were as parcels, like those transported by the Royal Mail between London and other destinations, and just as nothing is expected of a parcel but to lie there without causing any trouble, so too was nothing useful expected of us.
Parcels had the advantage on us, though, in that they were not flogged for the slightest misdemeanour.
Chapter 21
The stink of our living quarters was soon explained when we learned that most of the convicts had been on board for some weeks and had been confined to their quarters for all that time, apart from rare and brief visits above deck for exercise, during which they were shackled together to prevent attempts at escape. I felt intensely sorry for them when I learned of the duration of their detention, for to deprive men of fresh air and sunlight for so long is cruel indeed.
I was fortunate, because with our embarkation the Admiral Barrington had completed her loading for New South Wales and could get underway at the earliest opportunity. This event came so expeditiously that at dawn the next day I was awoken by a tremendous noise which appeared to come from just behind my head, but which I soon realised was from outside and was in fact the rattling of the chain as the anchor was raised.
‘Now we’re for it,’ said a voice from out of the darkness. I imagined, however, that the men who had been languishing so long below deck were relieved that something was happening at last, even though the raising of the anchor signified the commencement of a journey into an unknown redolent with awful possibilities.
Soon the more pronounced creaking of the timbers, the shouts of the sailors that I could hear dimly from the deck above, and the sensat
ions of movement signified that we were indeed underway, and going at a steady clip. After a couple of hours the soft and soothing rocking I had experienced during the afternoon and night were replaced by a more pronounced roll of the boat as, no doubt, we reached more open waters. Up until this time I had been obstructed from seeing through a porthole by the crowd of men assembled at each one, but as time went on they started to drift away, and I at last had my opportunity. There was however little enough to see. The holes had been shuttered over until we got underway, apparently to stop people on the wharf passing contraband to us convicts, but at some stage a small circle of wood had been removed, enabling a view and at the same time allowing a glimmer of natural light into our miserable surroundings.
I gazed through the thick glass at the ocean, a spectacle I had never seen before. I was gradually struck by both its variety and its monotony. The endless grey-green water, flecked with white, swirled away from the hull of the ship. After a while I imagined I could see patterns in the repetitive swirl. Did God determine the shape and hue of each of those movements of water? Was each carefully crafted, individually sculpted? Did each conform to the Creator’s plan for the universe? After all, Elihu did say to Job, ‘By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened. Also by watering He wearieth the thick cloud: He scattereth His bright cloud: and it is turned round about by His counsels: that they may do whatsoever He commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth.’
Later, as I came to know the New South Wales forest, I felt it had many of the qualities of the ocean. Even the colours seemed similar. A great expanse of water, a great continent of land. Standing in the forest, pondering the angle of a eucalypt leaf to its twig, the pattern of spots and lines on the leaf, the colour of its spine and the degree of its deviation from the vertical, I asked myself if, in its ever-changing colours and pattern and shape, its growth and decline for the duration of its life, it was a miniature masterpiece showing the touch of the divine hand, or merely a manifestation of chance, the outcome of all the random factors which affect the development of each form of life.
