South of Darkness

by John Marsden

  We saw a good deal less of Corporal Arnold, and we soon came to suspect that he was being given duties designed to keep him at a distance from the prisoners. However, the anger of the men towards him did not diminish.

  Then dawned a day that I have never forgotten. Any concern felt by the ship’s authorities over our silent protest during the flogging had no doubt abated, and once again most of us were allowed more and more freedom to go on deck for exercise. At least eight of the strongest and fittest convicts were now working every day alongside the crew, which gave the sailors much relief and seemed to bring pleasure to the chosen convicts, not least because of the regular glasses of rum issued to them as reward.

  On a day which I believe was somewhere around the start of October, six bells had just sounded when I once again repaired above decks with night buckets. I had already, in company with four other men, taken most of the buckets up and emptied them, but two had inadvertently been left behind. Bowers, one of the captains of the deck, ordered me to undertake a second trip with the remaining buckets. I did so willingly enough. As a result I stumbled across a scene not meant for my eyes.

  The ship was rushing along in a heavy squall and pitching quite wildly amid rough seas, but I had maintained my near immunity to seasickness and was not too discomfited by the violence of the movement. The wind was dead aft and all the foresails were set: the fore top gallant, the fore topsail, the lower fore topsail and the foresail. Since coming on board the Admiral Barrington I had learned enough about sailing to know that this configuration accounted for the considerable rolling motion.

  On deck, as far as I could see, were just a couple of sailors up in the bows, and three of the convict sailors at the stern. The only suspicious thought I had as I emerged from the hatch and saw them was that there seemed to be something odd about the way the convicts were gathered. They looked to be waiting, and they looked furtive.

  Coincidentally, as I took my first step onto the deck, Corporal Arnold emerged from the hatchway which led down into the cabins where the soldiers and sailors were accommodated. He could not see the three men, who were behind him, nor did he see me. He turned to come for’ard but almost at the same moment became aware of the men. He must have heard their footsteps as they rushed at him. He started to turn, but they were on him already. I was frightened by their speed and violence. They picked him up, ran him backwards and threw him over the stern rail, seemingly all in one movement. It was as though they had practised the manoeuvre.

  They moved away quickly, then one of them started shouting and hallooing to the sailors at the bow. ‘Man overboard!’ I heard him yell. ‘Man overboard!’ The others joined in the chorus, and they all rushed to the stern, peering out at the vessel’s wake, as though astonished by the sight of a man in the water.

  The sailors at the bow ran the full length of the boat in seconds. Only then did the helmsman realise that something was wrong. In these southerly latitudes he was sheltered by a heavy canvas screen rigged by the ship’s carpenter to protect him from the following seas that can so easily climb over the stern rail. Hence he had not seen anything of Corporal Arnold being heaved overboard. And perhaps his hat and oilskins had muffled his ability to hear the cry from the convicts, or perhaps he was deaf. At any rate, only now did he poke out his head to see what was happening behind him. Without thinking I too ran down to the stern. I could see Corporal Arnold, but I was shocked at how much distance had already elapsed between him and the Admiral Barrington. He was close enough, however, for me to see his desperate expression. He waved at us frantically and shouted something. I thought it might have been the word ‘Murder’, but fortunately for the three convicts his voice was lost in the wind.

  One of the sailors cut a lifebuoy adrift with the jack-knife that every sailor carries. He threw it in the direction of Corporal Arnold, but I was by no means sure that his intended target even saw it, for it landed in a trough between two large waves. The sailors turned away. One went to the helmsman, the other raised the hatch and shouted: ‘All hands on deck! Man overboard! All hands on deck.’ Out came the watch, and others besides, tumbling like ants from a disturbed nest. The captain suddenly appeared from his cabin. I wasn’t aware that anyone had called him, but perhaps he had a sense for calamities on board his ship.

  I heard him say to the helmsman: ‘We must be doing eleven knots.’

  ‘Eleven and a half, sir, last report I had.’

  ‘Hopeless,’ I heard the captain murmur. Nevertheless, he shouted a series of orders: ‘Launch the number two boat there! Make sharp! Prepare to come about!’ To the helmsman he said: ‘Prepare for helms alee.’

  He turned away and said to the sailor who had called out the watch: ‘Who is it went over?’

  ‘A soldier, I believe, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Present my compliments to Captain Phillips and ask him to join us on deck.’

  Only one of the convicts was still standing in the stern. The other two had gone for’ard to help, if help it can be called. Master Marsh called out to the man in the stern: ‘Can you still see him?’

  ‘No, sir, lost sight of him this moment just gone,’ the convict shouted back. ‘His head went under a wave and he hasn’t come back up.’

  ‘Fetch me a spyglass if you will, sir,’ Master Marsh said to the bo’sun, who had just appeared on deck.

  The bo’sun obliged and the captain stood at the stern peering through it at the turbulent waves, in the direction indicated by the convict. I should not have been surprised if the convict was deliberately pointing to quite a different place. After some minutes the captain shook his head. ‘How came he to go over?’

  ‘He was hanging over the stern rail, sir, sick as a dog, when the ship reared up and all of a sudden he was gone,’ the man replied, smooth and glib as can be.

  ‘Was he in uniform?’

  ‘Aye, sir, that he was.’

  The captain shook his head again and turned away. ‘Hopeless,’ he said again. ‘Belay those orders!’ he shouted to the helmsman and the crew. ‘Nothing to be done. Prepare to make sail.’

  I knew nothing of the sea, but it seemed that the time it would take to turn the vessel and sail back to the place where the corporal had gone over made the whole thing impossible. With no landmarks, no one would know where to look. Although, as I had observed, every wave is different, in a way, their ever-changing differences made them all the same. Weighed down by his uniform Corporal Arnold would already be sinking to the ocean floor.

  I felt sickened by what had happened. I was the only witness to a brutal murder. It was not the first time I had seen sudden death, of course, but the speed of this, the violent reminder of how abruptly a man’s life can be extinguished, left me shaken and shocked. Of course Arnold was a violent bully, but that did not lessen the impact of his death on me.

  I realised that throughout the horrifying episode I had continued to clutch the slops buckets. The weight of them had cut into my hands, leaving vivid white marks and red ridges. I went to the rails and tossed the contents of the buckets overboard. Some people get flowers on their graves. It seemed that Corporal Arnold was to get nothing but shit and piss on his.

  Chapter 31

  Only hours after the corporal’s disappearance, I was astonished to be witness to a procedure that even at the age of thirteen I considered macabre, though of course I did not then know that word. I was shocked to see the drowned man’s possessions brought up from his cabin and auctioned off by Master Marsh.

  I suppose, reflecting now upon these events, that it was another way of removing the contamination of death. Sailors are known to be the most superstitious men on earth, and I have heard stories of their becoming greatly perturbed when, for example, a cat dies on board ship, for they believe this to be a predictor of a storm. I found out, from the imprecations directed at me when I tried it, that they loathe whistling, because that too could provoke storm conditions,
or so they believe. As we neared New South Wales a sailor told me that the cook on the Admiral Barrington had been forbidden to serve plum duff, because on a previous voyage, whilst most of the men were below, eating plum duff in the mess, one of their shipmates had been crushed to death by a boat which fell on him from off the booms.

  At any rate, all of Corporal Arnold’s worldly goods and chattels, so far as I knew, were sold quickly and efficiently by Master Marsh. His chest brought the best price, but his regimental comrades also competed enthusiastically for items of uniform, his travelling writing desk and even his spare boots.

  And so ended my persecution by the honourable gentleman of the New South Wales Corps. I avoided his murderers as much as was possible. I spoke to no one of what I had seen, although I did attempt to raise the subject with Carmichael. As soon as he realised the matter I wished to broach he hissed at me: ‘Not a word! I told you what would happen, and now it has happened. Not another word!’

  No doubt many people had suspicions about the death of Corporal Arnold. The convict deck was rife with rumours, but no official doubts were raised. The captain held a short inquiry, at which only the six people known to be on deck at the time were called. The bo’sun asked me where I had been, but I said I had emerged from the hatch just in time to hear the cries of ‘Man overboard!’

  The captain announced that it was a ‘death by misadventure’. I wondered if he had expedited the inquiry because it was Corporal Arnold, whom he clearly did not like and almost certainly did not trust. He may well have had his own suspicions, but no doubt he also surmised that it would be impossible to prove anything against anyone. My respect for the captain’s acuity was such that I thought it likely he would prefer to consign the whole matter to an entry in the ship’s log and be done with it than to have the stench of it contaminate the rest of the voyage.

  But our journey was nearing its end. A couple of weeks after Arnold’s drowning we had our first sighting of land, just after ten o’clock in the morning. I had smelled it as soon as I came on deck. I did not know it was land that I was smelling, but I knew it was the fragrance of trees and flowers, and about eight hours later I saw a brown and black hawk, which made me feel that the coast must be very close.

  The unfortunately named Van Diemen’s Land was our first landfall. Of course we now comprehend that the body of water called Bass Strait separates Van Diemen’s Land from New South Wales, but it was not known for certain then whether the whole formed one complete land mass. Anyway, we did not concern ourselves too much with questions of geography. I think most of the men felt both relief and apprehension as the end of our voyage approached. We were all heartily sick of the cramped quarters on board the Admiral Barrington, tired of the monotonous food, and certainly fed up with each other. On the other hand the great distance we had travelled emphasised the vast gulf that now lay between us and our native home, and of course we had no real comprehension of the fate that awaited us at Botany Bay.

  I noticed that since leaving Cape Town the tenor of our conversations had changed somewhat. There was no more boasting about crimes, and very little recounting of the misdeeds that had caused us to be transported. I think the men had heard one another’s stories too many times for them to have any further attraction. Certainly once it was known I had been sentenced for stealing a purse, no one had taken any more interest in my wretched criminal career, as I am sorry to say that the persons of highest standing among our number were those who had committed the most atrocious offences. Only Carmichael had asked me for any details of my life or crimes, and I had not confessed even to him that I had set out to get myself transported. My experiences in Newgate and on the Admiral Barrington had already convinced me that my decision had been foolhardy. My need to get away from Mr Weekes was one thing, but I thought I would be a laughing stock if anyone knew that I had deliberately chosen to be sent to this savage land on the other side of the world, a place reputedly full of cannibals and monsters.

  In the second half of the voyage there was much less talk of women, too, perhaps because none had been glimpsed since we left Portsmouth, save for a couple of older married women among the paying passengers.

  No, the talk now was more about those gentler subjects which had been touched upon only in passing before, with men recalling, sometimes quite wistfully, episodes from their early years. It seemed that the further they travelled from their home country in distance and in time, the more importance memories held for them, and the more they strove to keep them in mind.

  Much more repentance was now expressed for the false choices which had taken these men so far from the path of righteousness. John Bunyan himself would, I think, have been satisfied by the extent to which many of the prisoners now recognised that they had strayed along the tempting paths of Danger and Destruction instead of labouring up the Hill Difficulty. The unknown but dreaded perils that lay ahead seemed to concentrate their minds on their pasts, and sentiments laden with regretful allusions to mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sweethearts, wives and children were commonplace.

  I knew nothing of France, so understood little of the life Pierre De Lafontaine had lived before coming to England, but now I listened in thrall to his tales of life as the son of a peasant on a farm in Bordeaux. He could talk for hours about his pigs, his chickens, the grape vines, the orchard. ‘But zere were too many sons, too many boys,’ he explained. ‘My father and mother, zey ’ave thirteen children, and nine of zem are boys. When my parents die, ’ow can a farm divide among nine boys? So I say, “I will go,” and I go to Paris to . . . what is this expression you ’ave? Make my fortune. But it is hard, so ’ard. I start to steal, the police, they chase, I go to London. But I still ’ave contacts in France. I arrange the smuggling. I make my fortune all right! But not for long! I spend it all. I smuggle again, but zis time I do not pay the custom men, I ’ave no money for the bribe, so of course they arrest me. What else they to do? And now look at me. I thank the good God my poor father and mother do not know what ’as become of me.’

  ‘Do you thank the good God for putting you on the Hulks and then sending you off in this wormy old wreck?’ asked Chris Norfolk. Pierre De Lafontaine looked quite perplexed at this response, and Chris added darkly: ‘I don’t think the good God is taking much care of any of us.’

  Such blasphemous statements were rare, however. Men prayed more frequently, the pious group who met each day to worship grew in numbers, and the level of attention paid during divine service on Sundays was noticeably more marked.

  As we sailed north, sometimes losing sight of land but never too far from it, groups of men exercising on the deck spent much of their time standing at the rails looking at the distant coast and musing on what it might portend. We were astonished at the extent of it. It seemed to go forever. Some of the cliffs appeared bleak and forbidding, but some, in their wild desolation, had a certain beauty. We argued over what appeared to be patches of snow on one stretch of cliffs, but many thought they were merely outcrops of a white rock. It had been cold enough at times for me to imagine a snowfall was possible. I was only slowly starting to become aware that everything on this side of the world was topsy-turvy, and winter occupied the months of June, July and August. We were now well into spring, but we had gone a long way south, and so there were days when the deck of the ship was still slippery with ice.

  As we continued our journey north, the sailors reported that at night time they could see many fires inland, which they assumed were the cooking fires of the Indians.

  It was the 14th of October when Master Marsh bade us take good note of the date, for he expected to make Botany Bay at about six o’clock the next evening. His optimism was premature however, for another squall hit us during the night. I awoke to find the ship pitching and rolling as before, and I had to grab the side of my hammock to avoid being tossed out unceremoniously. Others were not so lucky; I heard the crash of bodies and many curses as a number of my fellows
were thrown to the floor. Thunder rolled and rumbled around us, then, some half an hour later, we felt the ship turning and running before the storm.

  I would much rather have been on deck during wild weather, as it was hard not to feel terrified, trapped as we were in darkness, the hatches battened down, and ignorant of the conditions outside. Well we knew that were the ship to founder we would have poor prospects of escape. There would no doubt be a stampede for the hatch, and in view of my size and weakness, I would be either trampled underfoot or forced to the back of the mob. I felt my best hope in such circumstances would be to drop to my knees and pray with all the fervour I could muster, but I had little more trust than Chris Norfolk in the likelihood that the Divine was so closely shepherding us through our lives. Faithful Job had been far more worthy of His attention, yet God had neglected His devoted servant a long time before at last deeming him worthy of assistance.

  On the morning of the 15th of October we found that the storm had been troubling indeed: our main yard had been carried away by the wind, which had apparently blown up with little warning. A heavy swell was still running, and I could see dull flashes of lightning in the distance, followed by an occasional murmur of thunder. Nonetheless, the boat had turned again and resumed its course for Botany Bay, and as the breeze started to swing around behind us we made good speed.

  At dawn on the following day we were invited onto the deck most courteously, as if we were fine gentlemen, by the bo’sun, who was in excellent humour. There we viewed a sight which at times we had doubted our eyes would ever behold. We were approaching two capes, rather barren in nature, which evidently flanked the entrance to a harbour and which, the bo’sun informed us, was called Port Jackson. This had apparently become our destination, in place of Botany Bay. I found out soon enough that Botany Bay was a few miles to the south. It had been designated as the site for the first settlement, but rejected almost immediately by Governor Phillip in favour of Port Jackson, which he considered a more congenial location.