Behind the Sun Read online

  Before this stood a nervous-looking ship’s boy with a bundle of clothing in his arms. He thrust it at Harrie and reached for another.

  ‘Two, please.’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘I need two. One for my friend in the…’ Harrie couldn’t think of what sailors called wherever it was Friday had been dragged off to. ‘The prison bit.’

  ‘The brig?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  The boy looked doubtful. He was only about ten, Harrie thought, and probably suspected she was trying to trick him.

  ‘It’s true. She was rude to the guard and got carted off. She’ll need prison clothes when she gets out.’

  The boy looked across to an older crewman. ‘What do I do, Mr Furniss?’

  Second Mate Amos Furniss grinned, revealing stubs of tar-stained teeth. ‘Could be true. Or maybe she’s hoping to have the first lot ripped off by a lusty sailor. Which is it, eh, girlie?’ He winked slyly.

  Shocked, Harrie looked quickly down at her boots.

  The second mate laughed, hoicked and spat on the deck. ‘Give her what she wants.’

  The boy handed Harrie another pile of clothing.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘What’s your name?’

  Turning red, the boy said, ‘Walter Cobley, missus.’

  ‘Thank you, Walter.’

  ‘Ooh eh,’ Furniss said, punching Walter on the shoulder. ‘Walter’s got a fancy piece.’

  Walter coloured even more.

  Awkwardly clutching her basket, Friday’s sack and now a large double pile of clothing, Harrie gathered up her skirts and descended the ladder backwards, keeping a good grip on the rope that served as a handrail in case she missed her footing. At the bottom she turned and blinked. Where the sunlight spilled down through the hatch she could see floorboards and to her left and right vague shapes rising upwards, but beyond that she could barely discern anything. She could hear women talking, however, and sense their presence close by. It was hot and stuffy and smelled of damp, rotting wood and warm brine tainted with something else indescribably rank. Bilge water, perhaps, sloshing about in the very bottom of the ship? There was the sharp, acrid smell of water closets, too, which was a relief because it probably meant they wouldn’t have to do their business over the front of the ship. And not quite disguised by the gentle creaking of the ship’s timbers she was positive she could detect the sounds of scuttling, scratching claws. She felt panicky and claustrophobic.

  ‘Sarah? Are you there? I can’t see anything. I’m blind.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Just wait a minute.’

  Harrie did and in a moment her sight returned. Sarah was there with Rachel, both calmly waiting for her to get a hold of herself.

  ‘Better?’

  Harrie nodded at Sarah, then looked around.

  Down the length of the prison deck, in the centre, ran a long table six feet wide, through which half a dozen of the wooden pillars and posts bracing the Isla’s skeleton reached to meet the upper deck. The very large one in the middle was presumably the main mast. Flanking the table were long benches, and lining the hull on both sides were bunk beds six feet wide and perhaps five feet deep, one row on top of the other. The ceiling was low — barely five and a half feet below the heavy beams — and the space was cramped, especially when you considered that by tomorrow evening there would be a hundred and seven women and twenty-five children crammed into it. There were no windows and no ventilation except for a row of small scuttleholes in both sides of the hull, and the single hatch. Two oil lamps swayed gently from the ceiling, but pervaded the deck with a smoky haze and gave out only a dim, honeyed light.

  Harrie peered at the women who had preceded them, busy laying claim to the berths. It seemed they were to share them, four to a bunk. ‘Where’s Friday?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said, sounding worried.

  ‘I want that bed,’ Rachel said, pointing into the dimness behind the ladder up to the hatch. ‘Over in the corner, the one on the bottom.’

  Sarah and Harrie looked, then Harrie cast her eye down the length of the cabin again and saw what Rachel had no doubt already noted: Liz Parker and her crowd, who had embarked yesterday, settled in at the far end, playing cards. She elbowed Sarah, who followed her gaze then raised her eyebrows in belated comprehension. Rachel clearly wanted to be as far from Parker as possible.

  ‘Good choice, Rachel. Well spotted,’ Sarah said.

  It was a good spot and no one had claimed it yet: they dumped their things on the bunk. From here they would be able to see Parker and her girls coming and going and, most importantly, when their possessions were left unattended.

  ‘Come on then,’ Harrie said, forcing a note of cheer into her voice. ‘Let’s try on our new clothes.’

  Rachel unfolded a blouse and held it up. ‘God, it’s hideous.’

  In each bundle were two calico blouses, a brown stuff skirt, a loose-fitting jacket and an apron of duck, a pair of woollen hose and a straw bonnet.

  Harrie agreed, inspecting a row of stitching. ‘And cheaply made.’

  In spite of her misery, Rachel started to giggle.

  Sarah frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘All my dreams about pretty things and dresses and cakes. It’s just that, well, I’m not sure this is really the sort of thing I had in mind.’

  Sarah and Harrie stared at her, then burst into wild laughter, Harrie feeling awful because she knew how much Rachel really did want those things, but cackling until tears ran down her face anyway.

  Rachel removed her worn and mended top, revealing an extremely grubby shift, and slipped one of the stiff new calico blouses over her head. The neck opening was enormous, even with the buttons done up, and her fingers didn’t even reach the cuffs. Pathetically, forlornly, she waved her hands, causing the stiff calico sleeves to bend emptily and lend her the appearance of some sort of bizarre little puppet. They all roared.

  ‘What size did Friday get?’ Sarah asked, wiping her streaming eyes and pointing at the bundle sitting on Friday’s sack.

  Harrie had no idea. She handed one of the blouses to Rachel: it sat on her a little better, but she was so small nothing was going to fit well. She and Sarah, on the other hand, had received clothing more appropriate to their sizes, though everything was stiff and would require some breaking in.

  ‘I can put in a few darts if you like,’ she said to Rachel. ‘And take in the waistband on the skirt. Friday can have the bigger size.’

  ‘Is it a bigger size?’ Sarah asked, holding up the blouse Rachel had discarded. ‘Or are they all the same? Surely they wouldn’t have made them all the same size.’ She nodded towards the far end of the prison deck. ‘What about fat people like old gannet guts over there?’

  By this time they were shouting to hear one another above the din. The cabin rang with curses, laughter and hoots of mostly good-natured derision as the newly arrived women changed into their slops and exchanged greetings and gossip with those who had settled in yesterday. The atmosphere reminded Harrie of a particularly busy day at Petticoat Lane market, and she sat and watched for a moment, savouring it and storing it away, because she suspected there would be few moments like this again.

  Harrie woke early the next morning to the inharmonious clanging of a bell. She rolled over, stretched — and remembered there wasn’t enough room to sit up. Next to her, Sarah slept on. Knowing how grumpy she was first thing, Harrie watched her for a moment, then gave her shoulder a shake.

  Sarah jerked upright and banged her head. She rubbed her skull, scowling and looking as muzzy as Harrie felt. ‘What the hell is that noise? Christ.’

  ‘A bell.’

  ‘I know it’s a bell.’

  Sarah felt around in her hair then inspected her hand to see if she was bleeding. She gave her thankfully intact scalp a good scratch, yawned, then rubbed her face. ‘I haven’t slept that well in months.’

  ‘No, neither have I!’

&nb
sp; Harrie was very pleasantly surprised. The mattress was thin and lumpy and smelt sour, but was the height of luxury compared to the barracks bed in Newgate, and last night they’d each been issued with a pillow — an actual pillow! — and a new blanket. And though the bunks were a tight fit even for three, these factors combined with the gentle rocking of the ship had sent them into a deep slumber in spite of the chatter from the cabin’s other occupants.

  Sarah gave Rachel a gentle shove. ‘Wake up, sleepyhead.’

  Rachel rolled over and peered at her, revealing swollen, red eyes. Harrie hoped this wasn’t going to be one of Rachel’s miserable, missing-Lucas days. The girl could be so…mercurial. Was that the right word for her moods? She and Sarah shared a dismayed glance before Sarah said brightly, ‘Come on, princess: put your brave face on.’

  ‘Is Friday back?’ Rachel mumbled.

  As if in answer to her question, the hatch banged opened, letting in a shaft of early morning sunshine and a welcome waft of fresh air, and Friday herself bounced down the ladder, landing with a thump on the floorboards.

  ‘God, it’s dark in here. Sarah? Harrie? Rachel? Where are you?’

  Competing with shouts of ‘Shut up!’ and ‘Bugger off!’, Rachel cried out, ‘Here we are, Friday! We’re over here!’

  Friday turned and squinted, then waved. She looked dreadful, dark bags under her eyes suggesting she hadn’t slept at all.

  ‘Get through the lot of them, did you?’ Liz Parker called nastily from her hive at the other end of the cabin.

  Friday slapped her left hand over her right bicep and stuck up the middle finger of her right hand.

  Rachel scrambled out of the bunk, her hair all over the place. ‘Where’ve you been? We were worried. Are you sick yet?’

  Friday made her way down the three-foot-wide aisle between the bunks and the long, central table. ‘Not yet. They’ve got a couple of cells in the hold. Really tiny — I could hardly sit down.’ Friday looked around. ‘Good spot. In a corner so no one can sneak up, close to the hatch for the fresh air. Bloody hell, are they real pillows? Did you bring my sack? It’s cramped in here, isn’t it? God, the roof’s low, I’ll be sconing myself all day.’ Her voice was rising, her eyes widening, reflecting fear. ‘It’s really cramped, isn’t it? And dark.’ She let out a strangled shriek and clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘God, sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. I’m not the best in small spaces.’

  Harrie thought of all the time Friday had spent in the tiny, dank, pitch-black solitary cells in Newgate and felt a great, hot urge to weep. She’d never said anything, not once. Not trusting herself to speak, she indicated the gap under the bunk where they’d stored their possessions. Friday retrieved her sack, dug through it to an accompaniment of clanking sounds, pulled out a bottle of gin and took an enormous swig.

  ‘God, that’s better,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Harrie had already guessed what was in Friday’s things, but was glad now she hadn’t tipped it out. Still, she had to say, as diplomatically as she could, ‘Do you think we’ll be allowed spirits?’

  ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll hide it. Or drink it first.’

  ‘And what about when you run out?’

  Friday took a more genteel sip, then replaced the lid. ‘Sweetie, who sails ships?’

  Harrie felt better — this sounded more like the fearless, smart-arsed Friday she knew. ‘Sailors do.’

  ‘Yes. And what sort of refreshment do sailors like?’

  Harrie realised where this was leading. ‘You’ll end up in that cell again.’

  ‘Be worth it.’ Friday pulled a hideous face and shuddered theatrically. ‘I’d rather be dead than go on the dry for four months. While sailing the seven seas in a big leaky barrel of whores and thieves!’

  Rachel started to laugh, her giggle rising infectiously until heads began to turn. Harrie was relieved that at least something had cheered her up.

  Told in no uncertain terms not to get used to being waited upon as they would soon be responsible for managing their own rations, they were served a breakfast of oatmeal gruel with raisins and sugar made by the ship’s cook, which they ate at the long table using the wooden bowls and spoons they’d each been issued.

  The day passed surprisingly boringly. Access to the upper deck was curtailed while the Isla was still being provisioned and also as a precaution against escape attempts, though the surgeon superintendent allowed them up twice, in shifts, an hour at a time, for the fresh air. During their first turn on deck, he ordered each shift to bring up their civilian clothes, which he inspected. Anything he declared unfit to be worn again was thrown over the side, where it floated listlessly for a short while, then eventually sank, taking its cargo of lice, fleas and body odours with it. Harrie was called for her medical examination mid-morning, then Sarah, but Rachel wasn’t fetched until three o’clock in the afternoon.

  James Downey, of the Royal Navy and responsible for the health of all those sailing aboard the Isla, leant back in his creaky chair and massaged his tight neck muscles. He knew he took too long with this initial examination of his charges, but he’d been caught out during his first superintendency by convicts who’d insisted they weren’t ill when they were and then died on the voyage, passing their malaise on to other prisoners, and had vowed not to repeat his mistake. During that trip, seven children under the age of five had died and he still had terrible dreams about their wasted, gasping little bodies. At the time he’d also put two prisoners off the ship who had convinced him they were ill when they weren’t, which had earnt him a scathing letter from the governor of Newgate, testifying to the prisoners’ glowing health. It hadn’t done much for his self-confidence, or his reputation: by taking his time with the examinations he felt more assured regarding who really was sick and who wasn’t.

  So far he’d put four women off the Isla: two of such advanced age they clearly would not last the journey, and two approaching the final stages of death from consumption, which was vastly irritating as the prison was supposed to only release prisoners for transportation if they were fit for it. That is, hale enough to survive the voyage, then undertake physical employment when they reached New South Wales. He had also discovered that three women were pregnant, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to turn them back, even though they would likely deliver at sea. To give birth in a hellhole such as Newgate would be a certain death sentence for any child and probably its mother. Nor could he put off the mothers still suckling infants, though it was against the rules for a woman to be accompanied by a child still on the breast. They tried to hide it, but the dampness of the fabric over their bosoms, carefully concealed beneath their shawls, was always a sure sign.

  He was also still vexed by the fact that he had been denied permission by his superiors to perform his medical examinations somewhere suitable within the confines of Woolwich Dockyard, before his charges boarded the Isla. He was firmly of the opinion that at least some of the diseases he saw and treated on a regular basis were passed from one patient to another through actual physical contact, or at least the sharing of confined spaces, and did not have their genesis in the miasmas of the cesspit or the rubbish heap. It was a view that went against current medical wisdom and was considered by the majority of his medical colleagues to be seriously flawed, outlandish even, but his experiments with various medical treatments and remedies were furnishing his theories with considerable substance. It seemed to him that it would be far more sensible to examine the prisoners who were to be his charges — and the same could be applied to emigrants, for that matter — before they had a chance to mingle aboard the transport and spread any diseases they might be harbouring.

  His greatest fear was typhus, also known as gaol fever, ship fever, spotted fever, famine fever and putrid fever. It was the curse of the military and prisons — in fact, of any group of people confined in unhygienic, crowded spaces — and every surgeon’s nightm
are. Symptoms were aches in the head and body, weakness, vomiting, fever and delirium, and a rusty-red rash that began on the torso but spread and worsened to gangrenous sores. It passed among the population rapidly and was very often fatal. Other convict ships had discovered typhus on board and the outcome had been disastrous.

  Of course, these women, like all the convicts he had superintended, had been crammed together in prison for months and had quite possibly already contracted anything going around, but there was always a chance he might be able to spot particular symptoms and remove the carriers before they all boarded and set sail. He hoped so, anyway.

  He had also wanted the women to wash and change into their new slops ashore, to avoid infecting the Isla with the vermin prison inmates always harboured, but no, permission had been denied for that as well, even though he knew there were several vacant buildings that might have been adapted for that purpose. He suspected it was because these prisoners were all female and the idea of one hundred-odd convict women, some of them whores, some of them mothers, milling about, distracting his men and befouling his lovely dockyard, had turned the admiral’s stomach.

  This was James’s fourth appointment on a convict ship. He didn’t enjoy the duty and wasn’t aware of any Royal Navy surgeon who particularly did, but he did take a certain satisfaction from overseeing the passage of his charges from England to New South Wales in a reasonably healthy and fit state, some even arriving with better constitutions than that with which they’d embarked. They were a trial, though, and the women far worse than the men. He’d had to admit, if only to his wife, that he had felt some trepidation when he’d learnt that the Isla would carry only women.

  He had dual authority with the ship’s master in all non-nautical matters, which meant that the inhumane treatment of convicts during some earlier voyages, which he had not tolerated under any of his own watches, could not occur. He’d used this authority to ensure that provisions would be adequate, as per naval regulations, and the ship’s hospital suitably furnished and well stocked. Located on the same deck as the prison, but to the stern and separated by a bulkhead, it had been fitted with six beds and two cradles, lockable cupboards, a work table and shelves with raised rims to prevent items sliding off in rough seas. The ventilation was almost adequate, too, the lattice-covered hatch being set above the centre of the cabin. He would need to choose two or three suitable women to act as attendants when the ship got under way. As well, he’d had a cubicle within the hospital curtained off and fitted out as an examination area with a small desk at which he could write his notes, so that the women could be afforded some privacy when speaking with him. The hospital, in fact, had been located at the expense of the crew’s quarters, now squeezed into an even smaller space beneath the officers’ cabins on the afterdeck.