Me and my mates from the Rooster Charlie Gang had come up to Woolwich one summer day many years ago, hitchin' rides on the backs of hay wagons, to see if there was anything shakin' in the neighborhood that might lend us some sustenance. But lookin' down at the poor convicts toilin' away on the mud, dredging out the channel, we knew there was nothin' for us here, so we went back to our kip in Cheapside and, for once, were glad of our state, which was sure better than that...
...than this... And I thought Newgate was bad...
I am taken aboard and tossed into a cell, and metal shackles are put around my ankles. After giving me a kick or two and warning me to be good or else, the jailers leave and lock the door. I look about me and take stock.
The room measures about fifteen feet square and there are barred windows high up on two sides, which I suspect were once gun ports, and rough benches line the walls. There is a table in the center. There is no privy, but the place still stinks worse than any latrine.
There seems to be about twenty or so females in this particular cell, all seated on rough benches that line the walls, intent on sewing the fabrics spread out in their laps. 'Tis plain that, while the male convicts are sent out to do the muddy river work, the females toil here, making the rude garments the prisoners are given—after their own clothes rot off their bodies. From their general pallor, I assume they seldom, if ever, see the sun.
With my iron hobbles rattlin' on the deck, I shuffle over to the bench and sit down. The relief that had flooded over me after my deliverance from the noose has somewhat ebbed, and despair, once again, slips in. I know that I, too, could rot away in here for years and years, or at least until the typhus takes me off.
"Welcome to Haitch Hem Hess Bedlam, dearie. Yer sure t' love it here." The woman next to me laughs. "And what be yer name, then?"
I tell her.
"Well, yer name be all that you got o' yer old self down 'ere, dearie, so 'ang on to it as best ye can. In a couple o' years ye might be forgettin' it, and then you'll be like poor Edwina there."
At the end of one of the benches sits an old woman, her head nodding, saying over and over, "Eat cher puddin' girl or you'll get a whack ... eat cher puddin' girl or..."
I notice that about half the women wear the ill-fitting prison garb, and the other half got the remnants of their former clothes still clingin' to them. My companion sees me lookin' at the others.
"Y'see, dearie," she says, givin' me a companionable elbow in me ... my ... ribs, "Y'can tell who's bin 'ere a long time by how they look and what they're wearin'. See, over there? That's Elizabeth ... Elizabeth Drury."
I look over to see the woman, bent over and sewin' at the same sort of garment she's got on herself—rough cloth coat, rough cloth waistcoat, rough cloth skirt, her own clothing long since rotted off in the rank dampness of this place. The men outside got clothes made similar, 'cept they got trousers instead of skirts.
"She's been 'ere since '04, and 'tis wonder that she's still alive, poor thing, and 'as still got a part o' her mind left. 'Bout every summer, gaol fever comes through and takes about half o' us off, but she's still 'ere, bless 'er. Bless us all," she says, smoothing out the cloth in her lap. "I was named Margaret Wood at me christenin', but you can call me Maggie. Settle in, dearie. They'll soon be puttin' needle and thread inta yer hand and ... Ooohhh, look! 'Ere's the grub!"
There's a rattle at the door of the cage and men enter, carrying what is sure to be Missus Wood's much anticipated dinner. Cloth, needle, and thread are put aside, and the women flock to the table. I go to join them, and sit next to Maggie.
It is burgoo, of course, and particularly foul, bein' of a milky-lookin' mush, which sure ain't never seen no real milk and what's got a scum of brownish fat curdled up on top. I give it a bit of a sniff... No ... I can't... The biscuit that is put next to it is moldy green on both sides and soft ... squishy soft. I can do weevily biscuits, but not that. I push both bowl and biscuit toward Maggie.
"Thankee, dearie! But y'know you'll come t' eat it bye and bye, Missy, count on it," she says, munching contentedly on my discarded biscuit. "Else you'll die."
After the so-called dinner, the lights go out and I curl up alone on a bench and go to sleep listening to the moanings of the lunatic Edwina and the howlings of many others like her, echoing throughout the length of this miserable Hulk.
Lord, help me...
Chapter 13
It's been a week since I was brought here, and things sure ain't gotten any better. I have been given needle and thread and simple trousers to sew together. The cloth comes to us already cut—they don't trust us with scissors, and that's a wise move on their part for I'm about ready to slash the throat of any number of our jailers, heartless bastards that they are. There ain't a good one among the filthy bunch, and I don't care if I hang for my thoughts, I don't. I've already been struck by the rod several times for mouthin' off to the guards, and Maggie told me to watch my gob if I wanted to live through this. Don't care ... they can all go to hell.
And yes, I have even learned to eat their slops. I have cursed myself ten times over for not wearing my money belt on that day that I was taken—could've bought some decent food from the corrupt jailers, I could.
I'm wishin', too, that I'd kept my cloak that I'd left back in Newgate, because nights here are damp and my dress is thin ... my once elegant white Empire dress, now even more bloodstained and filthy. Recalling Newgate makes me think sadly of Mary, Molly, and Esther. Poor girls, you've got to be off and gone by now, your Monday appointment with the gallows certainly having been kept... Ah, I can't stand to think on it, but I can't help it. I do hope you died quick and clean, but I fear from the slightness of your forms that your deaths were slow and obscene. I don't pray for much anymore, in light of all the vileness and evil I have seen, but I have prayed for your souls and hope that they now rest easy wherever they may be.
I stick mostly to myself, seldom talking to anyone but Maggie. Most of the rest of them are a pretty rough, surly bunch. Well, I can be rough and surly, too, as several have already found out. Jacky Faber may not have 'er shiv, but Little Mary's fingernails are still sharp. She may be little, but she is strong ... in body, anyway. But in mind ... when I think on the fact that I could be in this hellhole for years and years ... I dunno...
It's mid afternoon and we are sitting silently sewing when we hear a commotion outside. Maggie gets up and stands on the bench so as to be able to peer out the barred window.
"Coo, come look, dearie!" she says.
"Wot, Mag?" I ask, getting up on the bench.
"Sumthin's happenin'!"
I'm too short to see out merely by standing on the bench, so I leap up and grab the bars and pull myself up to look out. Chin on bottom sill of the window, I see crowds of women being herded aboard our Hulk—women who ain't bein' particularly quiet about it, neither.
"Oo the 'ell you think you are? I runs a respectable house and I always has! Getcher hands off me! And getcher hands off my gels!"
And...
"I'm a good girl, I is! That sheriff is a lyin bastard! Let me go!"
And...
"Ow! You watch it wi' that stick, you filthy bugger! Ow!"
There must be at least fifty of them, dressed in a wild assortment of clothes—from the garish and bawdy, to the clean and respectable, and to what is plainly prison garb. What's goin' on here?
I watch until I hear a rattlin' of keys behind me.
Uh-oh, prolly gonna smack us for slackin off on the sewin'.
I drop back down and quickly snatch up my cloth and needle and sit. Ain't no one bein' bad 'ere, guv'nor...
The door opens and two of the guards—and a particularly nasty pair they are—come into the cell.
"Mary Faber, whichever one o' this gang o' sluts ye be, stand up," says the viler of the two, the one known as Toad.
I stand up and say, "Wot?"
"Ah, 'tis our little bint w' the fancy dress," he says, coming over to stand in front o' me. "
Sit yer ass back down."
He puts his fist on me chest and shoves me backward, and I fall on the bench.
"Wot's goin' on, Toady?" I ask.
"Jes' shut yer gob. Get 'er hobbles off, Frogger, and be quick about it."
The other bloke, known to all and sundry as the Frog because o' his general appearance, crouches down at my feet and unlocks the shackles from my ankles. Before he brings them up to put on my wrists, he runs his hand up my leg. Way up my leg...
"Fancy drawers on this one." The Frog chuckles. "Fancy dress, too."
"Come on, Frogger. Later for that. There's money to be made."
"Aye, and I knows 'ow I'll be spendin' my money. I'll be buyin' pretty little things, I will." He gives me a poke in my ribs and a big leerin' wink. It makes me sick to my stomach to see it.
"First the money," says Toad, seemingly the more practical o' the two sods. "And then the quim. Get 'er up. Let's go."
I am taken and hauled out the door. It is a bit of a relief to be able to walk free for a change. I look about for a chance to escape in my current condition—if I could make it to the side, I could leap over and swim away. I believe I could manage it even with these heavy irons about my hands, but I am not taken topside, no. I am taken into what I suspect is the guards' mess room ... and there ... lookin' glorious ... there stands...
Higgins! Oh, thank you, God! Higgins!
I go to rush to his side, but I am held back by my fetters, grasped firmly by the Frog.
"Nay, you sit down there," says Toad, pointin' to me and to a spot at the table. "And you, Sir, can sit yerself across from the tart. Keep your 'ands clear so's we can see 'em. Don't pass 'er nuthin' or else I'll toss you out, nob or not, and she'll taste me cane again. And maybe taste a few things more..."
I sit, and so does Higgins.
"You've got fifteen minutes," says Toad, and he takes himself to the other end of the table and sits down, his gimlet eye on the both of us.
I clasp my hands on the tabletop and cry, "Oh, Higgins, you can't know how good it is to see you!" Then I start in to blubberin'. "Don't look at me, Higgins, or get close to me. I am filthy and unclean."
"It is not your fault, Miss. I know that. However, we have some things to cover in our allotted time and we should get to it," says Higgins. "But first you must have a bite to eat." He unfolds a waxed parchment upon which lie several strips of beef smothered in a rich brown gravy. The aroma of finely roasted cuts of tenderloin hits my nose like a hammer. Oh, Glory!
I gasp and reach for a piece, but Frogger comes up beside me and stays my hand.
"Nay, this warn't part of the deal." And with that, he reaches in with his filthy fingers and scoops up three of the pieces and shoves 'em in 'is mouth. The Toad, seein' the fun, nips alongside and scoops up the rest, then drops 'em in his gob, leavin' only a few streaks of the gravy on the paper.
I look at it, all forlorn, and am thinking about licking it out.
"No," says Higgins, knowin' my inclination. "Don't give them the satisfaction. It cost us a good bit of our declining fortunes in the way of bribes for me even to get in here, so let it go. You will be gone from here tomorrow and that will be the end of your stay in this ... place."
Gone? Oh, joy!
I lift my eyebrows in question.
Higgins folds his hands on the tabletop and says, "I have already given you the good news, in that you will be delivered tomorrow afternoon from this place, which, by the way, does bear a distinct resemblance to the sixth level of hell. But I also have some other news that you might find hard to swallow. Are you ready?"
I sit up straight and nod, hands and shackles in lap.
"First, you are to be taken from here, along with about two hundred and fifty other women and girls, and put on a ship bound for the penal colony in New South Wales, Australia."
"I knew that, Higgins, as that was my sentence for my supposed crimes against the Crown of England," I say, feeling that my crimes were not all that horrid as to warrant a life sentence to God knows where. "But why are they so interested in transporting us worthless females?"
He takes a breath, then says, "Speaking plain, you are being brought there as breeders, pure and simple. England, having lost the American colonies, needs another place to expand—a place to put their overflow of petty criminals, revolutionaries, and troublemakers of all kinds, and maybe a place where honest folk could thrive, too. There are a lot of men there right now, and if you toss in a lot of women, then you will have a multitude of children and then maybe you might even have a country someday.
"Even as we speak"—Higgins's voice is muffled by the scented handkerchief he brings to his nose to disguise the stench of the place—"England is combing the prisons, brothels, and slums for women to fulfill just such a noble purpose."
"A far-seeing race is us Brits," I say. Me, I can usually see only as far as my own nose and my immediate needs, which, of course, are always considerable.
"Indeed, Miss, we are a race blessed with foresight. Legend has it that when College Hall at the University of Oxford was built, in 1379, acorns from the oak trees that were used to make the high vaulted beams of the ceilings were planted in a special grove, to insure that in four hundred years, when the original beams would need to be replaced, ample wood of the same stock would be available. Now, that is foresight," he says, and then stops talking for a few moments. "But I digress."
I know you do, Higgins. You are avoiding something. I wait for more bad news, which I know is coming.
"Ahem. Yes, Miss..." And here he pauses again. "You know you are to be transported, but you do not know this..."
"Yes?"
"Your ship, Miss..."
"I know, the Crown has taken her. She is no longer mine."
No longer my fine, fine treasure...
"Yes, but not only that—"
"What are they going to do to her? Burn her? Turn her into a garbage scow?"
Higgins takes a breath, and then goes on. "No, Miss. The Lorelei Lee has been sold to the East India Company, and they have been contracted to transport a certain group of female convicts to the penal colony in New South Wales."
It hits me and I gasp. "What? I am to be taken in bondage to Botany Bay on my own goddamned ship?"
"I am afraid so, Miss. I perceive that the Admiralty has a fine sense of irony. That and the fact that you outfitted the ship so perfectly to carry a large number of passengers. There is a good deal of irony in that, also."
I hate irony.
I fume as I ponder this. Then I think more on it and say, "This might be a good thing, Higgins, for it will give me a measure of comfort to be on her, if only in a reduced capacity ... and I will have my ship back, I will..."
"I am happy that you view it so, Miss."
"All right, then," I say, collecting myself from the last blow. "But I know there is something else, isn't there, Higgins? Something you haven't told me..."
He looks down at his hands and nods, but says only, "Several things..."
"Jaimy."
There, I have spoken his name and let it hang in the air. Why did I not ask of him before? Because I was afraid to hear the answer...
"Where has he been? Why has he not come to see me? Why was he not at my trial? Why...?"
Higgins takes yet another deep breath. "Steady, Miss, for I must inform you that he is being held in the naval prison at Portsmouth, awaiting court-martial."
I bury my face in my hands and bawl. Oh, Jaimy, no, not you!
Higgins's strong hands grasp my shaking shoulders and hold them tight till I subside a bit.
"Wh-wh-what is the charge?" I manage to stammer.
"Conspiracy to Defraud the King of His Rightful Property."
What?
"Lieutenant Flashby has made sworn testimony to the effect that Mr. Fletcher colluded with you in the misappropriation of gold from the Santa Magdalena. Lieutenant Bliffil adds to the lies, contending that he heard the two of you laying plans for the theft"
&n
bsp; "The lyin' bastards! Jaimy knew nothing of my scheme! Bliffil wasn't even there! And I didn't even have any idea of the project until we were well into the salvage of the Santa Magdalena! When is the court-martial?"
"In two weeks."
"When does the Lorelei Lee leave?"
"In about a week."
"So am I to leave and cross the Southern Ocean never to find out Jaimy's fate? How can I live with that? How could they be so cruel?"
Oh, Jaimy, how much better your life would have been had you never met me!
Higgins considers this and then says, "If convicted, his punishment would not be as harsh as yours, I do not think. Remember, it is Flashby's word against his, and Mr. Fletcher has an excellent service record. He is highly regarded by every captain he has served under, and those who can be made available will testify to that. Captain Hudson, for sure. Furthermore, he is an officer of the line of battle, while Flashby and Bliffil are merely intelligence officers. The admirals and captains who sit in judgment will also be much scarred and battle-tested line officers, and their sympathies would lie with Lieutenant Fletcher, one of their own."
I clench my fists and think hard on this.
"It may be," I say, thanking Higgins silently for, as always, softening the blows that come at me. "But only if Jaimy can hold his temper when that damned Flashby stands up and tells his lies. I can tell you it was hard for me to take, that day in the courtroom, and I was ... well ... sort of guilty. It will be harder for Jaimy, who is totally innocent. He had nothing to do with it—I didn't even let you in on it till afterward, when the expedition was done and we were about to head for Boston."
"Yes, Miss. I know."
If only Jaimy can hold his temper!
"We have but a few more minutes, Higgins," I say, trying to calm myself but beginning to tear up again, for I know he will soon be gone and I will be back in the cell. I must now ask him to do some things, to put some things in order.
The Wake of the Lorelei Lee: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, On Her Way to Botany Bay Page 7
