CORMORANT SET SAIL that evening with a pilot on board to guide the vessel on its way to the open sea and by the following morning the women convicts in the forward hold were made aware that the ship had left the shelter of the river banks behind when it heeled over and its movement increased significantly.
The vessel’s unpredictable motion provoked a certain amount of feigned hilarity, and not a few bruises, before the novelty of the experience wore off.
When food was handed down to the women one of the sailors chatted to them but he left them with a warning. ‘It won’t be long before you have your irons removed. They’ll be off for all the time we’re at sea and you’ll find Cap’n Leyland is a good skipper, but if you start misbehaving yourselves you’ll have them put back on again and they’ll be kept on until we reach Australia.’
‘Now, what do you think this captain will consider to be “misbehaving”? I hope he’s not against women who like to make men happy – particular sailors – like most of us here do.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ grinned the sailor, ‘and I don’t doubt my mates will be too….’
The man’s conversation was cut short by the ship’s mate. A large, burly man he carried a great deal of authority on Cormorant and was treated with respect by the members of the crew.
‘Have you fed the women?’ he asked the seaman.
When he received an affirmative reply, he said, ‘Then get back to your duties, there’s work to be done.’
When the sailor had hurried away, the large man called into the hold, ‘Where’s Eliza, she’s wanted up top?’
When Eliza showed herself at the foot of the ladder leading from the hold, the mate said, ‘Get yourself up here, I have orders to take your shackles off and take you to the captain’s wife.’
When he pulled her through the hatchway and she was standing unsteadily on the heaving deck, the burly man looked at her and, moved by her age and predicament, said, ‘Agnes has agreed to take you on as her maid for the journey, young ’un, but she’s not going to be an easy mistress. I don’t think she’ll ever be satisfied with anything you do, no matter how hard you try. I’ve yet to see her smile at anyone, or anything. But you must try your hardest because life with her will be a damned sight easier than living down in the hold with the other women. Anyway, let’s get your shackles off, it won’t do for you to keep her waiting.’
The ship was pitching and tossing more severely now and the mate grabbed her and pulled her into the lee of a deckhouse as a wave crashed against the ship’s side, sending heavy spray sweeping across the deck.
Maintaining a hold on Eliza, the seaman asked, ‘Have you ever been to sea before?’
‘No.’ Eliza was too busy trying to maintain her balance to say any more.
Keeping her in the shelter of the deckhouse, the sailor asked, ‘Why are you being transported? What did you do?’
‘I stole money from the husband of the woman I was working for.’
Another wave crashed against the ship’s side and once more she would have lost her balance had the sailor not been keeping a tight grip on her.
‘To get away from him, so he wouldn’t do to me what most of the women back there in the hold can’t wait to have done to them,’ she replied, bitterly.
‘Couldn’t you have just run away and gone back to your family?’
‘I’ve got no family. I’m a workhouse waif.’
The hand on her shoulder tightened in a brief gesture of sympathy, ‘I know what it must have been for you, I was brought up in a poorhouse myself….’
Yet another wave crashed against Cormorant’s side and, pulling her back into the shelter of the deck-house the sympathetic mate said, ‘We have a beam sea right now and it’s not comfortable but in an hour or two we’ll be turning to run along the Channel, it will be better then. Now, let’s get you to the captain’s cabin and I’ll hand you over to Agnes Leyland. My name’s Jim Macleish and I’m the ship’s mate. Remember the name if you have any problems, I can sort out most things on board Cormorant.’
Agnes Leyland was not a good sailor. When Eliza entered the captain’s cabin the motion of the sea tore the door from her hand and it crashed noisily against the bulkhead. Agnes was lying on the bunk, her face grey. Looking up she said, ‘I expected you an hour ago, what have you been doing?’
‘I had to wait to have my shackles taken off … ma’am. Now I’m here is there anything I can get for you?’
‘Not until you’ve changed into some decent clothes. They’re in there.’ Agnes waved a limp arm in the direction of a brass handled door set in the corner of the cabin.
‘Would you like me to fetch you some food – or perhaps something to drink?’ Eliza was finding the movement of the Cormorant uncomfortable, but she was not suffering as this woman and many of the convicts were.
‘Don’t even mention food to me. Get changed and begin cleaning up the cabin … No! Fetch the bowl from over there – Quick!’
Eliza snatched up a bowl from a cabinet, the top of which was fitted with wooden rails, to prevent items placed upon it from falling off with the movement of the ship. Placing it on the bed alongside the groaning and retching woman, she obeyed the waved command to leave her.
From behind the closed door of what had been the captain’s chart room she could hear Agnes being sick. Eliza found satisfaction in the knowledge that the captain’s wife would not be looking to find fault with her while she remained in such a wretched condition.
Emerging from the chart room she wrinkled her nose in distaste. Agnes had used the bowl and was now lying back in the bunk, breathing heavily and moaning gently.
Removing the bowl and placing it upon the cabin floor, she said, ‘I’ll take this away and empty it, but first I’ll tuck you in and make you comfortable. When I come back I’ll bring some water with me for you to keep by your side. I won’t be away long.’
Her eyes tightly closed, Agnes nodded weakly and Eliza realised her new mistress would cause her no trouble while the rough weather lasted.
Outside the cabin she met with Captain Leyland who was returning to see how his wife was.
‘She’s not very happy at the moment,’ Eliza said, in answer to his query, ‘but I don’t suppose anyone enjoys being on a ship in this sort of weather.’
After asking Eliza her name and receiving her reply, Cormorant’s captain said, ‘We’ll meet up with far worse than this before we reach Australia, this is merely uncomfortable, nothing more. Anyway, we’ll ride easier when we are heading west along the Channel, although the barometer’s dropping, so we can’t expect much of an improvement in the weather just yet, but you don’t seem too affected by it, have you spent time on the water?’
‘The nearest I’ve come to it is falling off a barge I was playing on, into the canal. I must have been about five then, but this weather doesn’t seem to bother me, not as much as it does Mrs Leyland.’
‘She’s never been a good sailor. I couldn’t understand why she wanted to come on this voyage with me, but I suppose she believed life was beginning to pass her by and she wanted to see some of the world. Anyway, I won’t go in and disturb her now. You look after her well on the voyage and I’ll see that you’re taken good care of when we get to Australia. There’s plenty of scope there for a girl who wants to make something of herself – but only if she gets off to a good start.’
Thanking Captain Leyland, Eliza emptied the bowl over the side of the ship and, after cleaning it out, returned to the cabin where Agnes was still lying in the bunk, feeling sorry for herself – although she found the ability to ask Eliza why she had been away from the cabin for so long.
Eliza explained that she had met up with the captain who had been on his way to check up on his wife’s well-being and she had been able to reassure him that although feeling very unwell, she was tucked up and warm and, as her maid, she would attend to her every need. Eliza added that the ship would be altering course soon and its movements would then be more comfortable to contend with.
Not fully placated, Agnes was able to find sufficient strength to tell Eliza she had been brought from the convict hold to assist her and not spend her time gossiping with others. She reminded her once again that the degree of freedom she would enjoy on the voyage depended upon carrying out duties to her in a satisfactory manner.
Little more than an hour later Cormorant turned into the English Channel and with the wind behind it conditions became a little easier for those on board.
Agnes fell into an exhausted sleep and Eliza busied herself about the cabin, at the same time wondering what life would hold for her onboard Cormorant. She had already decided she liked Captain Leyland a lot more than she did his acerbic wife.