Chapter Three

Darkness engulfed her.

Moaning softly, Jennie pressed harder against the rough hull, away from the women sharing her berth. Although she was surrounded by women, they were strangers and she’d never felt so alone. The dank, cramped bowels of the ship closed in on her. This was worse than anything she had imagined.

The ship’s creaking, the bumping and bawling of the cattle below and peculiar banging noises mingled with shouts of the sailors above board horrified her. Even more, the terrified whispers of her companions, the furtive scratching of rodents and the rocking of the ship created an overwhelming sense of danger.

Everything seemed to be closing in on her. The berth was like a shared coffin. The sweaty bodies in her berth smacked against each other with a scant eighteen inches to call their own. Even if Jennie could turn on her other side, the space was too shallow; the ceiling only few inches from her face. Desperation crept through her as she thought about the horror of spending the next four or five months in these confined, coal-black depths.

Her breathing came in short, quick bursts. In a panic, Jennie jerked upwards on one elbow. She whacked her forehead on the top beam. The short wrist fetter yanked her down again, and she cracked the back of her head against an iron bar. She yelped and gulped back sobs.

“Hush her up, Hildy,” said the woman lying two positions over.

“Stuff it, Flo. Why should it be me?” Hildy griped.

“You’re closest.”

Jennie whimpered again.

“Give ’er a slap,” said the youngest woman on the outside of the berth. “That’ll stop the bleedin’ ’ysterics!”

“Give her one yourself, Gladys,” Hildy snapped, as she butted her bony shoulder against Jennie. “Stop the whining or you’ll have the billy clubs down on us.”

“Shh. Don’t distress yourself, dearie,” Sarah comforted from a berth below. “It’s of no use.”

“I’m scared too.” Alice’s trembling voice reached Jennie’s ears.

Jennie felt ashamed of herself. Alice had to be even more terrified than she was. She took in a long quavering breath to steady herself.

“Don’t mind me, Alice. I’m better now.” Jennie tried to reassure the youngster, though her heart pounded hard against her chest.

“We’ll get through this together,” Sarah promised, as Alice choked back a sob. “Don’t fret now, Alice. I’m close by.”

Jennie added hollowly, “We’ll come out right.”

“Hmmph,” grunted Hildy.

“Shows how little she knows,” muttered Flo.

“All we have now is our prayers,” said someone with the high-pitched voice directly below Jennie.

“Is that you, Iris? Fat lot of good prayers ’ave done,” Gladys scoffed. “Look where they’ve brought us!”

“Prayers work. You must believe,” Iris said, her voice rising indignantly.

“Imagine where we’d be if the prayers didn’t work,” Flo scoffed.

“We’d be swinging from the three-legged mare,” barked an elderly voice.

“Cheerful ruddy thought that, Dottie!” said Hildy with a sniff.

“At least we can be thankful that’s not our fate,” said Sarah.

“It’d be better than living in this stinking hole,” volleyed back one of the tough young women from the bunk next to Jennie’s head.

“Come now, Lizzie, we must have Christian fortitude!” Iris’s voice rose an octave.

“If the bloody Lord is around, why doesn’t he save us from this cruelty?” Gladys demanded.

The bickering continued between those who felt their religion had failed them and those who clung to a stalwart belief in a merciful God. Jennie listened and her stomach clenched. How could people talk like this? This was heresy. She could hear her mother’s voice: “Don’t ever take the Lord’s name in vain.” The Lord’s Prayer flitted through her mind. Silently she began praying.

“Stop your waggin’ tongues,” a warder sounding like Scarface shouted close by.

A weak glow of light wavered by Jennie’s berth.

Bang!

Gladys yelped.

“Keep your body parts out of the aisle,” Scarface warned. He continued in the direction of the surgery, banging his club against the berths as he passed.

Voices quieted, but the ship’s sounds magnified from different corners in the dark. Jennie quaked with fear. Not only had she entered a terrifying unknown, but she had never questioned her faith before.

Now she began to wonder about the events of her life. She’d prayed for food, and when she’d found the sack of musty oats in the rubbish bin, she thought it was the answer to that prayer. Would the forgiving God she’d trusted all her life let her and her family suffer and almost starve to death? Was this terrible punishment a retribution or a test of her faith? The more she thought about it, the more agitated she became.

The warder passed again, heading back toward the gunroom, still banging his club. Laughter erupted from inside the room at the end of the passage as he opened the door. He closed it again, but not before Jennie heard the shuffling of cards and the clanking of coins on a table and the unmistakable voice of Red Bull, saying, “Oi’ll raise you three shillings.” Jennie felt her skin crawl.

“Already gambling, and we haven’t even made it out of the harbour,” scoffed Hildy.

“You’re just jealous, Hildy, wishing you were playing,” snickered someone from below.

“Shut your yap, Mary,” said Hildy.

“Who are you telling to shut up?” said a new voice.

“I didn’t mean you, Mary Cavanaugh,” said Hildy.

“What about me, then? You referring to me?” someone else asked.

“I don’t know your voice. Who are you, then?” asked Hildy.

“Mary. Mary Pilling.”

“No, I meant you Mary, whatever your last name is below me,” Hildy said in exasperation.

The woman responded, “I’m Mary Roberts if you must know, and I don’t take kindly to you telling me to shut up, either.”

“Nor do I,” said another voice. “Mary Breck here.”

Several more up and down the passageway shouted “Mary” along with their last names.

“How many bloomin’ Marys are on this tub?” asked Gladys.

“Too many!” Hildy muttered under her breath so that only Jennie could hear.

Jennie drew in a breath. “I’m a Mary too,” she said in a low voice.

“Blimey! All you Marys better sort yourselfs out.” Hildy ended in a shout. “You’ll drive us barmy keeping you straight.”

“I go by Jennie.”

“I’m a Molly,” said someone from the far end.

More began reeling off their nicknames – “Meg, May, Millie –”

“Enough already!” said Hildy. “We can’t even see you to put faces to!”

“Well, at least we know if we call for Mary, someone will answer,” Gladys chortled.

“Fine lot of good that’ll do,” Hildy grunted.

Abruptly the gunroom door banged open against the wall and a guard bellowed, “That’s enough out of all of you, Marys or no!”

Scarface was silhouetted in the doorway. He whacked his stick against the nearest bunk. “A body can’t get any rest with you lot. Now shut your yaps, or it will be beatings for yous next.” From behind him came shouts of agreement and the clink of tin cups on tables. He slammed the door shut again, and the air snapped with sudden silence.

Hildy ventured a whisper. “Guess we did get a little loud, if they heard us over their gamblin’ and rum drinkin’.”

“That why you’re here again, Hildy? Gambling?” Gladys asked in a low, husky voice.

“Mebbe,” murmured Hildy.

“Helped yerself too liberally to the winnings, maybe?” offered Gladys in a snide undertone.

“Give off airing me filthy knickers, or I’ll give over how you pull fast ones on nobs at the theatres,” Hildy hissed.

“You’re just jealous of my expert sleight of hand,” cackled Gladys softly.

“You’re no better than Lizzie at shopping,” Fanny cracked, her voice rising above a whisper.

“Shh,” someone scolded.

Gladys whispered loud enough so those in their bunk could hear. “Maybe, but at least I didn’t get made for trouncing a copper, like Lizzie did.”

“Why are you bringing me into this?” growled Lizzie from the next bunk. “Besides, he deserved it, didn’t he then. He wanted the stuff for hisself.”

“Must have been worth a lot, then, if you risked this fate,” Hildy said.

“Would have been, had I managed to keep it,” Lizzie grumbled. “How about you? Was the risk worth this again?”

“Not in coins, but I will get to see my Dickie again,” said Hildy smugly. “There was no way he was ever coming back home. He got done for eighteen years.”

Jennie listened, surprised at Hildy’s explanation for committing a crime in order to be reunited with her husband. An unexpected emptiness clutched at Jennie’s stomach as she wondered how her family was managing without her. One less mouth to feed to be sure, but also one less pair of hands to bear the work and figure out how best to make ends meet. She hoped her mum and sisters wouldn’t have to go to the dreaded workhouse.

“What about you then, Flo?” asked Gladys.

“I borrowed a horse,” Flo answered. “But I returned it,” she insisted, “only the owners didn’t quite see it that way.” She sighed. “Fanny, you must have a right good story to tell us. I haven’t seen you done up for a long while.”

“Stole a wallet from a gentleman.” Fanny guffawed. Several laughed.

Jennie recognized the voice of the pockmarked woman, who lay in the berth next to her head beside Lizzie – the other mean woman who wouldn’t let her into the berth. All of the women speaking seemed to know each other in some way; together in jail at one time or another, she figured.

“The toff chirped. Though ’e was wadded up and could ’ave spared it,” Fanny added.

Lizzie chided, “You’re such a doxy, Fanny!”

Jennie blushed at the crude word. She’d overheard her mother refer to the women walking under the street lamps late at night as doxies, but she had never met one before. Nor did she know what they did.

Suddenly, Fanny kicked the bars at Jennie’s head. “And how’s about your crime, Miss Prim?”

Jennie didn’t want to tell anyone why she was on the ship.

Fanny kicked harder.

“Please stop,” said Jennie. She tried to stall. “We’ll get a beating.”

Bang! Fanny slammed her foot near Jennie’s head again. “Then speak up!”

“Oats,” Jennie whispered, hoping, because they were all in the dark, no one would know who spoke. She was so humiliated by what she’d done. She wasn’t like all the others, not really. She was a good girl.

“Louder!”

“I stole a sack of oats the milliner’s wife threw away.” Jennie spoke louder and finished in a rush, not wanting the guards to hear Fanny’s commotion and hoping the questions would end. She also didn’t want to recall the terrible ordeal.

“Aren’t you’re a brave one then, stealing out of a dustbin,” Fanny said sarcastically.

Jennie felt the heat rush into her face.

“There’s no call to be offensive, Fanny,” Iris said. “We’re decent folk, unlike you.”

“Decent folk?” Fanny scoffed. “Where do you think you are, Iris? On a voyage for an exotic holiday with toffs? Stealing sugar for your dying dad’s tea is still theft!”

From beside Fanny, Lizzie said, “Yeah, you’re here with us, ain’t ya? Call us doxies or whatever names you like. But you’re no better than us. None of you.”

Jennie sucked in her breath as the words sank in. Surely stealing a sack of discarded oats couldn’t make her as bad as…as a doxy. Neither could she be lumped in with the “real” criminals, could she? But no one looking at them now would know the difference. That was what being on this ship meant. She was branded a criminal for life. Shame engulfed her.

Iris’s high voice crackled out of the void. “We’re all equal in the eyes of the Lord.”

“You got that right, at least,” said Fanny. “And you‘ll all be doing the same thing as us when we reach Van Diemen’s Land.”

Gladys groaned. “Ooh, don’t say that.”

“There’s not much other choice, I hear tell,” said Flo quietly.

“That’ll even us up all the more,” chuckled Lizzie.

Jennie froze. What were they talking about? Her mother had never told her why she disapproved of doxies, but it didn’t sound pleasant.

As the whispering subsided, Jennie pressed against the hull and tried to sleep. But the conversations kept running through her head.

What was she going to have to do? Whatever that was, she knew it couldn’t be good.