Chapter Seven

When the warders extinguished the lights at 8:00 p.m., Jennie feared it would be another sleepless night of fending off bedbugs. From the moment she landed on her pallet, she’d begun swatting at them.

“Bloody nippers!” Hildy wiggled beside her.

“I thought the sun and sea air was supposed to get rid of them,” said Gladys, slapping her body.

“Maybe from the mattresses, but that doesn’t help if they’re not gotten rid of down here in the hold,” Flo said.

Others complained too, but they had little recourse. Jennie faintly heard the whispered grumbling as fatigue overcame her.

The next thing she knew, flames consumed her. Licking at her from every direction, bright orange and hot. She screamed.

Hildy gave her a swat. “Wake up! Quit your screaming!”

Breathing heavily, Jennie was relieved that she’d only dreamt of being in hellfire. The fear the reverend infused about eternal separation from her loved ones shook Jennie to her very core. Obviously, all her praying so far was not enough. She’d have to do more. She mumbled the Lord’s Prayer, she made up prayers, she begged for her soul and forgiveness for her sins in loud whispers.

“Quiet!” Hildy swatted her again.

From then on, Jennie said the prayers in her mind, begging for mercy.

••••

As the days and nights passed, Jennie dreaded dusk, when she and her cohorts hauled their bedding back down to the hold again. Inevitably, she endured the almost sleepless nights fending off vermin and nightmares.

Although sick at heart, Jennie was thankful that she’d withstood any serious bouts of illness. Seasickness continued to affect many of the women for the first week and a disease of the bowels attacked almost all of them into the second.

Dr. Weymss finally solved the problem by dispensing a compound of sulphur of magnesium to each of them, followed by doses of castor oil and some other tincture that tasted like chalk. Jennie hated the taste, but didn’t want to be sick. Their routine and the management of the ship appalled Jennie and varied little, as did their atrocious food, which she knew was the reason the women were ill.

Oft times they were served tiny portions of salted meat for supper, which barely filled a little corner of their stomachs. Jennie had trouble nibbling the hardtack that went with it, having to smack it on the edge of the table to break off a piece. What was worse, as time went on, the heat below deck was almost suffocating and the stench unbearable.

Their cramped quarters filled with the odour of the bilge below them, where the ship's animal wastes were stored in gravel that was impossible to clean. The stink of vomit was the hardest to take, next only to the fetidness of the sick and dying women and children. Some had been ill even before the voyage began, and they didn’t last long under the harsh ship conditions.

The prayers, commencing again on the main deck afterwards, left little to be thankful for, so Jennie stopped praying altogether. Except for the threat of eternal flames, could hell be very different from life on this ship?

Jennie was happy to escape the drudgery of routine by occasionally helping the surgeon suture cuts whenever accidents befell crew or convicts. Kate was there too, whenever an extra pair of hands was needed. Of any of the Marys, there was no sign.

“Have you ventured to do nursing before?” Jennie asked Kate timidly one day.

Kate laughed. “Not at all, though I do have a little experience with a saw.”

Jennie looked at her in puzzlement.

In her lilting voice, Kate explained. “I got hauled up, unjust like, for cutting someone’s shrubbery. It hung in front of our doorstep for an age. My Liam’s back was acting up something dreadful. After a full shift of work, he had to crawl through the bloody stuff to get into the house.”

Just at that moment Gladys came by on her way back from the privy and poked her head in. She had overheard and said, “Neighbours can have bloody cheek all right, Kate, can’t they?” She stepped into the surgery.

“Those neighbours were just plain mean,” said Kate with a sniff. “They didn’t even eat the plums off the branches. Just let ’em rot. So what if we helped ourselves to a few while we cut back the branches?”

As Jennie listened in amazement, Gladys commiserated with Kate and then blurted, “Mine had me nicked for feeding me family a chicken.” She went on indignantly. “We was hungry and it was strutting about free like, not in any pen. I ask you, how was I to know it belonged to our neighbour and that it wasn’t free for the taking? Chickens all look alike.”

“That’s right, Gladys, as if you could tell.” Kate gave a hoot of laughter, and they grinned at one another. Jennie smiled sadly at the injustice of all of their plights. They really did seem to be very much alike – for certain in the eyes of the law.

“What’s all the gabbing about?” Sarah stepped in to join them.

While Gladys and Kate filled Sarah in, Jennie recalled other similar stories she’d heard from her former cellmates while awaiting punishment. She was saddened most by the injustice of transporting convicts for the minor crimes. The lowest sentence for transportation was seven years for even the most trivial misdeeds. Everyone she knew from her old neighbourhood was starving, and if they hadn’t stolen yet, they were on the brink of doing so, or perishing.

Gladys echoed Jennie’s thoughts when she spoke. “What’s a body to do when you are famished with no means to make a living?”

“Aye,” Sarah responded. “Is the government going to see everyone starve to death or jailed and shipped off to other countries? Sir Robert Peel may have made some good reforms, but there are some he should have left alone, or some he should yet make, like feeding the poor.”

“There won’t be anyone left in the country soon,” said Gladys.

“Except the rich,” Kate said.

“Can you picture the toffs carrying out their own slops?” Gladys snorted.

“Shh,” Jennie said suddenly. Was that the guards? Or had Lizzie stirred? She shooed the others out of the surgery. But there was no movement from Lizzie, who still lay unconscious.

Over the next few days, Jennie continued to check on Lizzie, changing her dressings as needed. Surgeon Weymss told the warders to give Jennie free access to the surgery to care for her patient.

When she wasn’t helping Alice with her letters, Jennie escaped to the surgery as often as she could, puzzling over the various tins and jars filled with powders, dried plants and liquids. The sight of them reminded her a little of her grandmother’s scullery, and that calmed her somewhat. She studied the labels until she could read them, but didn’t know their purpose unless Doctor Weymss happened to use them. Then she secretly watched how he applied them and for what illness.

She also kept Lizzie company, though Lizzie never acknow-ledged her. At first, Lizzie slept a great deal, and at every slight movement she twinged with pain and whimpered. After the surgeon left each day, Jennie chattered to Lizzie about her home and family when her father was alive, even though Lizzie never responded.

One afternoon, as she straightened and dusted the medicine containers, Jennie prattled about the wonderful flower gardens they used to have; how she and her sisters, when they were little, chased butterflies and hid in the tall grass at its edges.

“Stop your nattering,” Lizzie croaked. “I can’t listen to any more about your cheery home life.”

Jennie was so surprised at Lizzie’s sudden outburst that she didn’t take offence.

“You’ve recovering!” she said, rushing to Lizzie’s side.

“Yeah, and the sooner I can get out of here and away from you the better,” Lizzie grunted.

Jennie beamed at her.

Lizzie turned her head away, but not before Jennie saw a tear slide down her cheek.

The next time Jennie returned, and for several days afterwards, Lizzie was sullen, but more vocal. She expressed her discomfort at every spasm of pain, as Jennie removed her bandages and cleaned her wounds. When Jennie spread salve on her wounds, Lizzie said nothing, though Jennie knew Lizzie felt soothed – her features softened.

“Where you’d learn to nurse, in a butcher shop?” Lizzie carped one day.

“I don’t know how to nurse at all.” Jennie laughed.

“Your hands are cold,” Lizzie continued to grouse with a slight smile on her face.

“That’s because your body is so hot. It’s working hard to heal you.”

Lizzie grunted.

“Why did they beat you?” asked Jennie lightly, smoothing salve onto Lizzie’s right shoulder.

“What did they tell you?”

“Disobeying orders and planning a mutiny. I know that last can’t be right,” said Jennie.

Lizzie cursed. “Mutiny! If I’d been planning a mutiny, I would have succeeded, and I sure wouldn’t be bone-headed enough to let them find out.”

“Why did they say that then?”

Lizzie let out a stream of oaths, and mumbled about horrible things she’d like to do to the man with the red beard.

“You mean the guard who flogged you? Red Bull? What about him?” asked Jennie.

“He lies,” said Lizzie and that’s all she would say on the matter.

Ten days after her beating, Lizzie managed to sit up for a bit, though in dreadful pain. That was the same night Dottie was brought in suffering from dysentery. Jennie tried to tend to her too, but the doctor didn’t give much hope for Dottie’s recovery.

One evening a few days later, Dr. Weymss deemed Lizzie ready to go back to her own berth.

“I’ll get her settled in,” Jennie said to the surgeon.

“Fine, but she’ll be expected to take part in all the exercises and work, so there’s no point in mollycoddling her.” The surgeon turned on his heels and headed for the ladder.

“But she can barely walk,” Jennie protested.

“All the more reason she manages to do things under her own steam soon.” The surgeon spoke from halfway up the ladder without turning to her. “The guards will pick on her like a sick chicken and won't thank you for coming to her aid.”

“But she needs time to heal.” Jennie’s protests fell on deaf ears.

“Leave it,” whispered Lizzie. “It’s part of the punishment. I’ll be fine.” She swayed to her feet, and waved Jennie away when she tried to assist.

Weakly Lizzie lurched down the passageway, pausing to lean against posts and berths. Jennie walked next to her, ready to catch her if she fell. All was well, until Lizzie reached her berth. She gasped with each movement as she stretched up her arms and tried to climb.

“Don’t. You’ll rip open your stitches,” Jennie protested.

“I’ve no choice.”

“Yes, you do,” Kate’s lilting voice came from the bottom bunk where Sarah also lay. “I’ll trade with you. You take my place down here.”

“I don’t want that heathen doxy near me,” objected Iris from next to Kate.

“Some kind of Christian you are then, not to help another human being. You’re just a mean-spirited old woman,” Sarah said with a sharpness in her voice that Jennie had never heard before.

While Jennie was surprised by Sarah’s rough manner, she also noted Sarah’s acceptance of Kate, and Kate’s kind offer. Perhaps the things that Jennie had been led to believe about the Irish weren’t true.

“Don’t put her right next to me,” Iris squealed again.

“Push to the back then, because she’s staying,” said Sarah. “We’ll all shift so Lizzie can have the front. It will be easier for her.”

“But not for us,” grumbled Iris as she squirmed against the hull. “Lord help me to persevere.” She began a fervent mumbled prayer.

Barely had the space been made, when Lizzie slumped half on and half off the bunk.

“She’s fainted,” gasped Jennie. “Shall I get the surgeon or a guard?”

“A guard will be too rough. The surgeon won’t come. We’ll manage,” said Sarah. She and Jennie eased Lizzie’s top half onto the bunk. Kate climbed out and lifted Lizzie’s legs.

Once they had her settled, Jennie tended to Lizzie’s back, making sure the stitches held and the bandages were in place. Satisfied, Jennie climbed slowly to her own berth and collapsed.

The daily routines passed in an endless blur for Jennie. She didn’t know how much time had elapsed, nor did she care. Sometimes she felt numb, and at other times, she had to quell the fear that seized her and made her as helpless as a rabbit in the jaws of a fox – especially at night.

Although Jennie frequently awakened from sleep, scratching at lice and bedbugs, or in terror from her nightmares of burning in hellfire, once it was the whisper of warders creeping past her bunk that woke her. Dottie had expired in the surgery one evening at 8 p.m. as the roll call before bed was underway. The surgeon hadn’t been able to do anything for the elderly woman’s dysentery-ridden body. Even though she’d never liked Dottie, Jennie thought it was a relief that she hadn’t had to suffer any longer.

When Jennie heard the creak of the infirmary door, she knew that’s where the warders had gone. A short time later, she heard the light rumble of the ladder being put in place and then some thumping and whispered cursing, followed by a scuffing sound.

Jennie peered through a narrow slit in the berth boards, but darkness shrouded the guards. There was a tap, and someone from above opened the hatch door a crack. A faint light from overhead revealed three figures, struggling with what looked like a bulky body wrapped in a blanket. It took some time before they managed to manoeuvre their load onto the deck and close the hatch again.

Several moments later, Jennie heard a distant splash. Had they just dumped Dottie into the ocean? No one had been able to say good-bye, and no prayers had been said over Dottie! She was just gone. True, the surgeon was afraid others might catch her illness, but surely Reverend Brantford could have had some kind of prayers for her before they dumped her so unceremoniously into a watery grave.

Jennie recalled others that had died and some who’d gone mysteriously missing. She wondered now if they too, had been heaved overboard in the middle of the night as fodder for the sharks. She’d never thought before about what happened when people expired on the ship. Had no one else been awakened tonight? Were they all oblivious?

She heard the hatch creak open again, and saw the warders return with an empty blanket in their arms. They stowed it back in the infirmary. Unmoving, Jennie stared into the dark, as they rustled past her. The guardroom door hardly made a sound as they opened it and slipped inside.

After that the ship seemed to settle back into its familiar gentle creaking, as if breathing a sigh of relief. It was some hours, though, before Jennie fell into an uneasy sleep amid the usual snoring and muttering.

And then she dreamt of hands reaching for her, pulling at her. She flailed out to keep them from heaving her into the sea too. “Don’t throw me overboard!” she cried out.

Smack!

Jennie jerked awake, her arms punching wildly in the air, her heart pounding.

Hildy smacked her again. “Hit me one more time, and I’ll pulverize you,” she hissed.

Jennie dropped her arms, staring wide-eyed into the dark.

“Lie still, or Dottie won’t be the only one to leave the ship tonight. I’ll dump you overboard myself.” Hildy flopped her head away.

So, others had heard. She hadn’t been alone in what she’d witnessed. Somehow, knowing that did little to calm Jennie's anxiety. Sleep came no more to her that night.