The Final Voyage

Capetown to London

They reached the southern tip of Africa and anchored in Table Bay on March 18, 1792. James roused Mary from the stupor into which she had fallen, and repeated the rumour that they were to be transferred to an English ship, the Gorgon, commanded by a Captain Parker. “They say Parker is a humane man, and his wife sails with him. I should think this bodes well for the remainder of our journey,” James offered encouragingly.

Mary glanced along the line of men whose clothes had long since rotted away, so that their nudity was nearly complete. Mary herself, weighing less than ninety pounds, wore only a scrap of the sarong she had been wearing when thrown in the Kupang dungeon six months earlier. Charlotte, mere skin over bones, was naked entirely.

“If he recognises us as human,” she said dryly. “Let us hope that he does not share Edwards’s view that we hardly need feeding, and iron fetters fit us better than clothing.”

The longboat carrying the Bounty sailors was launched first, and came alongside the Gorgon while the boat carrying those from Botany Bay was still a little way out. From afar Mary could hear the prisoners being treated to insults from passengers hanging at the rail. The air was filled with such remarks as “Bloody pirates!” and “Sure and I’d know ‘em for mutineers anywhere.” “What a rough-looking bunch!” “Look at them tattoos!” “Can you believe they’re English?”

As their boat approached the ship, Mary kept her eyes downcast. Being as unkempt as the Bounty men and nearly as naked, she expected the same sort of scorn from this audience of properly-dressed Englishmen.

Suddenly the air was filled with exclamations of an entirely different sort. “Bless me!” bawled a familiar voice. “If it ain’t them that bolted with Mary Bryant!”

She looked up in amazement. At the railing were Sergeant Scott, Lieutenant Clark, Captain Tench, and other mariners whom she had last seen in Botany Bay, staring with astonishment as great as her own.

“Why, it’s the girl herself if it ain’t her ghost!” exclaimed Scott.

“Impossible!” Tench shaded his eyes to get a better look. “By God, I believe it is! Hey there, Mary! Mary Bryant!” Clark called.

Mary did not respond. She was engaged in trying to get Charlotte to cling to her back so she could climb the ladder to the ship’s deck, for she knew it would frighten the child to be taken up in the sling. Then, realising that Charlotte was not strong enough to hold on, Mary asked the oarsman to give her a bit of rope to bind the little girl to her body. Only when she began to climb did Mary realise how weak she was herself.

Behind her, waiting his turn, James touched her ankle and said, “Hold your head up, Mary. It is an amazing thing we have done, and they know it sure as we do.”

Mary was too preoccupied with hanging on and raising herself hand over hand up the ladder to care about impressing others. Six months as Edwards’s captive had robbed her of muscle, and left her spirit just as depleted.

When at last she reached the deck, hands stretched out from every direction to help her aboard. “Upon my word, but I never expected to see you alive again!” Scott exclaimed.

Near nude though she was and not caring at all, but perhaps because James did care, Mary stood as tall as her five-foot-four frame would allow, and tried to smile.

By then James was on the deck beside her, and Tench was saying, “Brown, you rogue! Whatever are you doing in the company of mutineers?”

“I say, Sir, it is as great a surprise to see you,” James said. “How is it that so many mariners from Botany Bay are aboard this vessel?”

“Our tour of duty is up. Replacements permitted some of us who came out on the Charlotte to go home. By God, but this is incredible! Where is that rascal Bryant?”

“Taken by fever in Batavia. Old Matey died there as well. Cox the carpenter we lost on this final leg of passage.” James paused and added, “Mary’s son Emanuel perished of the fever around the same time as his father.”

Tench turned to Mary. “Mrs. Bryant! I am so sorry.”

Others, including the wives and children of some of the officers, crowded around, full of curiosity about the journey which Mary and her companions had survived. Scrapper began to boast, but the others were satisfied to answer questions as asked.

As conversation swirled around them, Lieutenant Clark unfastened the rope which bound Charlotte to her mother and lifted the child off her back. “Hello there, Charlotte. Do you remember me? Dr. White is aboard. Won’t he be surprised to see you!”

Mary moved a little away from the crowd, for she did not feel strong enough in body or mind to deal with so much excitement. Taking in her new surroundings, she noticed that three were watching from the bridge. One was obviously the ship’s captain. Next to him was the First Mate, and a woman, probably the captain’s wife of whom James had spoken.

Suddenly Mary had a sense of having spent the whole of her life looking up at people who were looking down on her. The English judge who had sentenced her first to hang and then to be transported instead. Governor Wanjon who had sent her to the dungeon. Captain Edwards who believed that being chained in the hold of a ship for half a year was appropriate punishment for being who she was and doing what she had done. All leading up to this moment—a moment in which she no longer cared about anything.

Or so she imagined. In reality, there was the promise she had made to Charlotte to take her to England. It was the one thing she could do, and wanted to do, before judging men put an end to her existence on earth.

Some of Edwards’s mariners approached, carrying manacles to re-secure the prisoners. The First Mate hastened down from the bridge and called them aside for private words. The discussion grew heated, so that everyone on that part of the deck overheard.

“You might have considered the fact that there are officers’ wives present before bringing naked men aboard,” the First Mate informed them curtly. “I have been ordered to take charge of the prisoners. You may report that to your Captain Edwards. If he has objections, let him take up the matter with the captain of this ship.” The First Mate then ordered his own men to take the captives below without manacles.

As Mary stood in line to go into the hold, she looked beyond the railing of the deck for what she could see of sea and sky, not knowing whether she would glimpse either again before reaching England. Then she followed the others into the hold.

*

It saddened her a little that the Bounty sailors, who had suffered alongside them for more than half a year, were placed in a separate cell. She had grown fond of the two youths, Heywood and Ellison, even though the latter admitted that he had participated in the mutiny. Burkitt said he had been involved, too, but how could she hold it against him when he had been so kind to Charlotte while pining his heart out for his own wife and daughter back in O’Tahiti?

Although she would miss those men, whom she had come to think of as friends, Mary was relieved to find herself and Charlotte sharing a cell with only James, Luke, Pip, and Scrapper. It was a cramped space and the hold of the ship was oven hot, but no longer were they shackled to floor boards and forced to lie in their own filth. Each prisoner had been provided with a hammock. In the past Charlotte would have slept in the curl of her mother’s body, but the child had grown tender in the joints, and cried out when anyone touched or tried to move her. Mary asked for and got a separate hammock for Charlotte, which she hung touching her own. James hung his hammock on the other side of Mary’s. With the hammocks of Pip, Luke, and Scrapper strung up alongside, there was no space whatsoever to walk around. But that hardly mattered. During their first weeks aboard the Gorgon, while the ship yet lay in the harbour, the heat of the hold, combined with weakness from starvation and lack of exercise, inclined them to inertia.

From the time they had first been shackled on the Rembang six months earlier, Mary had begun to draw in on herself. She rarely spoke, and roused only to meet the most basic necessities for Charlotte. Sometimes even those were not attended to unless James or one of the others reminded her. She was of course aware of James’s presence and to some degree comforted by it. But in a state where it was almost beyond her ability to care for her child and herself, she really had nothing left over for him.

He must have been aware of the reason for her withdrawal, though, for when it became apparent that on this ship they would not be starved, he had, in an indirect way, spoken of it. Passing her a cup of stew (Mary no longer rose from the hammock to serve even herself, let alone others in her party, as she had done in times past), James said, “After a week or two of decent rations, I expect our minds will be less dull.”

He said no more, nor did he need to. Mary knew that he longed for a resumption of the lively and tender conversations they had enjoyed during that one golden month in Kupang. She felt much the same, but whereas there remained some semblance of hope in James’s eyes that this might yet come to pass, she was sure that such moments would never come again. Her feelings, insofar as she felt anything, consisted of wordless black rages.

The only times she felt truly alive were in dreams, when she imagined herself attacking a man. Often this took the form of her lunging at Edwards or Wanjon or Will with a blade—the knife having been pulled from the folds of her sarong, or having magically appeared in her hand. But, as dreams are wont to do, hers often turned to nightmares, and she would wake with a pain in her chest, convinced for a second or two that the villain had turned the knife on her and that she was the one about to die. It would take her a moment to realise that she was alone in her hammock, neither dead nor dying. Often in her hand would be the wooden comb Bados had carved for her back in Botany Bay which, through all her trials and tribulations, she had carried tucked inside what was left of her sarong.

About a week after boarding the Gorgon, the captives were given cast-off clothing collected from passengers and mariners. The sailor who brought the garments told them that Edwards had been opposed to this charity, but Captain Parker had decided that they were to be allowed on deck as soon as the ship sailed. He would not have the wives of officers on board further insulted by the sight of nude prisoners.

The day after they received clothing to cover their nakedness, the hatch opened, but no one immediately descended. Instead, a discussion commenced on deck, in voices loud enough for those below to hear most of what was being said. The loudest voice was that of Edwards, which the prisoners knew well and had come to dread. He was saying, in a petulant tone, “I have no choice but to abide by your decision, Captain Parker, but I strongly protest these criminals being allowed out of irons.”

“It would seem that you make no distinction between men charged and those proven guilty,” Parker observed.

And Edwards’s unimaginative response, “I don’t know what you mean, Captain.”

“As the Bounty sailors have not been tried, one cannot say with certainty that all are mutineers,” Parker explained patiently.

“As for the others, surely you would not keep a woman in irons!” exclaimed the high-pitched voice of a woman whom Mary guessed to be Mrs. Parker.

“I certainly would,” Edwards asserted. “And have done these six months past. There is absolutely nothing of the gentle sex in Mary Bryant. They say she showed not a sign of grief when her husband died, and put her infant son over the side with neither tear nor prayer.”

“You are quite mistaken!” protested Tench. “The child Mrs. Bryant has with her now was born on our voyage out. I observed them daily, and I assure you, no high-born lady could have been more tender. The Bryants were model prisoners on that voyage, and in the colony as well, except for Bryant’s delving into the black market. I wager it was for the children’s sake that they made their bid for freedom.”

“But how did they get to Timor? And with all alive?” wondered Captain Parker.

“What an intriguing woman,” mused his wife.

“Pray do not misplace your admiration, Mrs. Parker,” scolded Edwards. “The woman is in no way remarkable.”

That brought a snort of derisive laughter from Dr. White. “Except that with a babe in each arm, she sailed a boat all the way to Kupang. And am I not correct in saying that their vessel did not founder on a reef?”

“They are less than the vermin that feeds upon them,” Edwards muttered.

“A great many humans do not rise above the level of vermin,” came Dr. White’s dour comment. “Nevertheless, it is a remarkable thing they have done.”

“Indeed it is,” Tench said eagerly. “With your permission, Captain Parker, Dr. White and I will proceed to interview them.”

“If you wish,” Captain Parker said easily. “But I daresay you won’t stay long. Given the kangaroos and other wildlife we are transporting, the stench in the hold is overpowering. You would do better to wait until we sail, and the prisoners can be brought on deck.”

At this point Edwards launched into a protestation against the notion that the prisoners should be allowed to take exercise, but Mary had ceased to listen, for even listening took energy she did not have. She lay sweltering in the heat and the mindless rage that now so often consumed her; she was hardly cognisant of her surroundings until James’s voice broke through.

“Mary! Get up. Captain Tench and Dr. White are here.”

“Dr. White?” Mary struggled to her feet and tried to collect her thoughts. “You ought not to be here, Sir. ‘Tis not a fit place for the living.”

“You and the rest of this lot seem alive enough,” he said, in his usual cranky way. Then he squinted past her to Charlotte, who lay naked and unmoving in her hammock. “Good God! Tench said she was thin, but the child is a perfect skeleton!”

“After being starved for six full months, what would you expect?” Mary spat.

Tench cleared his throat and said, speaking to Mary but in a voice meant for all to hear, “Mrs. Parker would have you and your child put in a separate cell, Mrs. Bryant, to prevent molesting by the men. But the ship has only the two, and the other is taken up by prisoners from the Bounty. She did ask me to enquire as to whether you are being abused. If so, her husband, the captain, will see that the man is properly punished.”

For a moment Mary stared blankly, her thoughts coming slower than in the past. Then with that sudden vehemence which, since their recapture, sometimes came exploding out of her without premeditation, she cried, “Abuse? What does she know of abuse? Who among these men—” she flung out her arm to include the four men who shared her cell, “—could imagine doing to a woman what that vile Edwards has done to us all? If Captain Parker would mete out punishment, let him not start with these men, my brothers all, but by hanging—”

“Mary, Mary!” James grasped her arm and tried to pull her from the bars which she was gripping with unnatural force. “Be quiet!”

“—Captain Edwards!” Mary shouted. “Hang him, I say! Hang him! Hang him!”

“Stop it!” White snapped, adding his authority to James’s pleadings. And to Tench, “Captain Parker fairly warned us—the stench down here is unbearable. Let us continue the interview later, when we are out of the harbour and the prisoners can be brought on deck.”

The two visitors exchanged a meaningful glance and quickly left the hold.

“Oh, Miss Mary!” Pip whispered in a frightened voice. “Ye ought not to’ve said such a thing. I’m sure they was meaning us well.”

For a moment longer Mary stood gripping the bars as if her hands were welded there. Only when she turned around and saw how the men were staring at her did she realise what she had done; how, just as she let her rage take possession of her back in Kupang, and had offended Governor Wanjon to the point that he gave no consideration to her supplications, so might she have done again with the officers from Botany Bay.

“Reckon we ain’t got all that many friends,” Luke said. He turned his back on her, muttering, “Seems like we might be showing respect to them that is.”

From further along in the hold, Ellison called out, “That your little Captain Mary down there trying to stir up a mutiny?” Amidst raucous laughter, he added, “Don’t count us in on this one. We done had ours, and it ain’t done any of us a bit of good!”

“Them Bounty boys got a point,” Scrapper said laconically. “Don’t know ‘bout a woman, but a man could get a flogging for saying how one of His Majesty’s officers oughta be hanged.”

Mary looked from one to another, last at James, whose worried eyes said all those things and more. “Oh James,” she moaned. “Have I lost my mind?”

“Not your mind, Mary,” he said gently, putting his arm around her and urging her back to her hammock. “There was nothing illogical in what you said. It’s more a matter of self-control, upon which you once prided yourself, and which served you well as a means of getting things done. Flying into a rage was necessary in Batavia, as the fever going about might have killed us all, and there was no other way to bring attention to our situation. But in our present circumstances . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he could not bring himself to criticise her as the others had.

“I don’t know what comes over me that I behave thus,” she said.

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then replied, “It has been clear to me for some time that when a body is as wasted as ours are, the mind is likewise weakened. I suppose the same applies to self-control. But I believe, truly I do, that as we recover our physical strength, those other parts of our personality will regain their vigour as well.”

“Those are comforting words,” Mary said, and closed her eyes and went to sleep.

*

Dr. White did not take his own advice about waiting till the prisoners were brought on deck to see them. The next day he returned to the hold, this time alone. Again, James had to rouse Mary from her hammock, for it was to her the doctor wished to speak. “I came to see Charlotte,” he said abruptly. “Bring her to the bars.”

Mary hesitated. “She cries when I try to lift her. It pains her.”

“I did not ask what she wanted,” White snapped. “Do as you’re bid, woman.”

Charlotte did cry when Mary picked her up, and continued to do so as her mother held her near the bars for Dr. White’s inspection.

He looked at the suppurating sores on the child’s bone-thin thighs, but all he said was, “You have been aboard for more than a week. Has she put on no flesh at all?”

“She will not eat,” Mary admitted. “I believe it is scurvy, for her teeth have loosened and fallen out but for one.”

“Hold her close and open her mouth so I can examine it,” the doctor instructed, and muttered to himself, “As if I could see a damned thing down here in the dark.”

Mary, cajoling the child to open, got the mouth opened wide enough for the doctor to run a finger around inside. “As might be expected,” he snapped. “Full of cankers. Once scurvy reaches this stage it’s damn near fatal. What she needs are citrus fruits.”

“Are they to be had?” Mary asked anxiously.

“I will have some sent down,” White said, “But the acidic nature of such foods makes eating them agony once the mouth is so raw.”

True to his word, Dr. White saw to it that a lime each day was sent down for Charlotte. But as he had predicted, the child screamed in agony when the juice was squeezed into her mouth, and she gagged, and absorbed but a few drops of what was given to her.

They set sail soon thereafter. To the prisoners’ relief, they were allowed to spend the morning hours on deck where the temperatures, although still stifling hot, were not as high as in the hold.

One day, as Mary sat with Charlotte, trying to keep her cool with a wet rag and the fanning of her palms, Captain Tench wandered by. “Mrs. Bryant,” he said pleasantly. “The heat is quite unbearable, is it not?”

“Bearable,” she said shortly. “And awful.”

“It must have been hot in that open boat, too, when you were sailing the Coral Sea,” he continued, no doubt hoping to lure her into a conversation about the adventures of their escape. When Mary did not respond, he continued, “Of course, one had to mind the reefs there. How was it that you steered clear of them?”

“’Twas easy enough,” Mary said impatiently. “When I felt coral teeth rising up to bite a hole in the boat, we turned aside.”

Tench stared down at her uneasily for a moment, then said in a dubious voice, “I see. Well, uh, good day to you, Ma’am.”

Dr. White, who had observed the exchange, said, “I see your interviews are not going very well, Mr. Tench.”

Tench grimaced. “Oh, the others are inclined to talk. And except for young Scrapper, not inclined to boast. But her—.” He motioned toward Mary.

“The criminal mind is not given to reason,” pronounced Edwards, who, although uninvited, had wandered over to join the conversation.

“I confess I find her strange,” Tench admitted.

“She has suffered a great deal,” White said shortly. “I suspect that she now stands just this side of madness.”

Edwards’s small lips curved into a mirthless smile. “Perhaps it will ease her hanging.”

The heat was horrible on deck, and even worse for the prisoners during the hours they were confined to the hold. Mary stripped off the dress Mrs. Parker had acquired for her, and went back to wearing what remained of the sarong, a mere strip of fabric knotted about the waist. Yet there was nothing sensuous in that nudity, for neither her bare breasts nor her legs retained enough flesh to give them womanly curves.

Charlotte’s agony was so great when touched that her mother’s arms were no longer a comfort. When Mary realised this, she offered the only thing available that might provide a little solace. She told stories, and called on the others to do the same during all the hours the child was awake. For Mary, nothing existed except her daughter, whom she might have seen—could she have borne the knowledge—was dying.

In fact, children were dying all over the ship. Within a month of their sailing, Clark wrote in his journal that seven of the mariners’ children had died, most of these being around Charlotte’s age or younger. Only a miracle might have ensured that Charlotte, disease-ridden and starved beyond recovery, would survive. On this voyage there would be no miracles.

In the late afternoon of May 5, the air was rent with screams. A sailor came tumbling down the ladder to find Mary at the bars, holding Charlotte in her arms. Around her crowded the four men, terrified by their own helplessness.

“The bosun says shut the bleedin’ bitch up if I have to pitch her oversides,” the tar barked.

“Please fetch Dr. White!” James begged, as he tried to comply by covering Mary’s mouth with his hand.

“Come, fellow, you can see she’s plumb off her head. You want her quiet, bring the doctor,” Luke urged the sailor. “He’s the only one can settle her down.”

“What if he won’t come?” the sailor asked dubiously.

“He’ll come, Sir, I know he will,” Pip put in. “He’s fair fond of the little one.”

“Make haste, Sir!” Scrapper panted, as he tried to assist the others in getting Mary into her hammock. “This ain’t—!”

Just then Mary got one of her arms free and bashed Scrapper across the face, bloodying his nose. The sailor shook his head and disappeared.

It was not long before the hatchway opened and Dr. White descended, along with the turnkey.

“It’s Charlotte,” James said, and mouthed the word, “Dead.”

“Mary!” White commanded. “Bring Charlotte to me.”

“No!” Mary shrieked, clutching the limp body to her breast. “She is going with me. To see England.”

White wiped perspiration from his brow, and muttered, “Perhaps she sees it now.”

“To walk the fields of Cornwall, and pick wildflowers along the lane!” Mary insisted.

The doctor shook his head slowly from side to side. “You are bound for prison, Mary. That is no place for a child.”

“In all the world,” she said dully, “no place for my child.”

White motioned for the turnkey to open the door. When the door was open, he said, “Come, then. Bring her up into the sunshine.”

Mary followed the doctor obediently, whispering to the little body as if it were alive.

“Doctor?” the turnkey called after him.

Dr. White looked back. The turnkey motioned toward Mary’s companions, asking if they were to be allowed to accompany her. White nodded. The turnkey held the cell door open, and the men filed silently out.

Up on deck, only a few of the ship’s company gathered for the funeral service. It might have been the heat, because the sun was just touching the horizon, and as yet there was no relief from the day’s sweltering temperatures. Or maybe they stayed away because it was only a convict’s child. Or because in recent days they had seen too many children die already.

Captain Parker came to the railing with a Bible in his hand. Mary gave him a suspicious look. He cleared his throat and began to read, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Mary interrupted loudly. “She is cold, Dr. White. Feel her hands. Is she not cold?”

White took the dead child from her. “We are very near the place where Charlotte came to life, Mary. God wants to take her back and you must let her go. Do you wish to kiss her once more?”

Obediently, Mary kissed the lifeless cheek.

Captain Parker continued reading. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters.”

Dr. White held the little body over the railing and let go. Mary watched it fall. Then, without warning, she flung herself at the doctor like a wild animal. Screaming incoherently, she tore at him with teeth and nails. White was so taken by surprise that he sustained several bites and bloody scratches before Tench and Gardner, who stood closest, leapt forward and pinioned her.

Almost immediately, Mary ceased to flail and went limp. Although her eyes remained wide open, she was obviously not seeing anything around her, nor did she respond to their entreaties. For a moment the onlookers were silent, aghast. Then Mrs. Parker said quietly, “Perhaps we were praying for the wrong soul.”

From that day in early May until the ship sailed up the Thames in mid-June, Mary spoke not a word. Her mates tended her like the invalid she was, cajoling her to eat and to take sips of water, for without urging she would do neither. She left her hammock only when they pulled her from it and moved her up on deck with considerable effort, two pulling her from above, and two below boosting her from behind.

While on deck, James never left her side. If it was hot, they took turns fanning her, and if it was rainy, they huddled with her and held a bit of canvas over her head. She paid them no mind, other than to occasionally jerk against their grip. The wooden comb Bados had made stayed tucked into the waistband of the half-sarong she still wore, but her hair remained uncombed and her body unwashed.

She was in those days something of a curiosity, with passengers and crew wandering by from time to time to observe and comment on her condition. As she appeared oblivious to their presence, they thought nothing of making remarks in her presence. Whereas at the start of the voyage she was called “the girl from Botany Bay,” they later began to refer to her as “the mad woman.”

Dr. White checked on her daily, sometimes giving James a curt command as to a detail of her care. One morning, as Mrs. Parker was accompanying White on a stroll around the deck, she stopped in front of Mary, and asked, “Does she ever speak?”

“Not as far as I know,” White replied, and looked at James, who shook his head.

Mrs. Parker held a handkerchief to her nose to ward off the smell of Mary’s unwashed body. “Despite her class, I had hoped to see something of consequence in the poor creature’s character.”

“It is difficult to judge character in one drained by grief,” White snapped.

The captain’s wife, perhaps offended by White’s abrupt manner, lifted her chin. “Many of our seamen’s wives have lost children on this voyage, and do grieve, I assure you, Doctor. But never have I seen one sink so low. What excuse can there be for such behaviour?”

White stood for a moment glowering down at Mary, as if infuriated by the sight of her. But the doctor was only considering the question. At last he said, “It seems to me that women bear suffering like beasts of burden. Some take load after load until they are broken. Others are like the Spanish ass. When the weight is more than they can carry, they simply lie down, and nothing on earth can induce them to move until the load is lightened.”

“Indeed!” Mrs. Parker seemed intrigued by the comparison. “And which manner of woman is this?”

“Madam, I do not know.” With that White turned and limped away on feet that always pained him.

Mrs. Parker, still staring at Mary, murmured, “What a shame she does not pray.”

She started to follow Dr. White, then turned back and asked James, “Is there a particular reason why, after being supplied with a perfectly decent gown, she persists in going naked but for that rag knotted about her waist?”

James stood slowly and with a correct and courteous bow, replied, “I understand how Mrs. Bryant’s manner of dress must offend you, Madam, and all the ladies on the ship. She did wear the gown for a time, but removed it in the heat of the hold when her child was dying and grief overcame her sense of propriety. We men who are confined with her have too much respect to lay hands on her in the intimate way that would be required to dress or bathe her.”

He hesitated and added, “We do pray daily, as you yourself suggested, that she might soon recover enough to do for herself.”

Mrs. Parker’s eyes opened wide, no doubt surprised that a man she had taken to be a rough criminal should be so well-spoken. “Then I shall pray for her as well,” she said, and moved away to rejoin Dr. White.

Soon after this conversation, the Gorgon reached England, and anchored at Portsmouth.

“Five years we have been gone,” James whispered to Mary as they lay in their separate hammocks that night. “We have sailed clear to the other side of the world and back again.”

Mary did not respond. She was not merely in a separate hammock, she was in a separate world—a world in which there existed nothing but a blackness of rage. When James came to feed her of a morning, sometimes he found her clutching the wooden comb in her hand, but did not understand why this would be so, for she had not combed her hair
since Charlotte’s death. He had, several times, tried to take the comb from her to do the combing and braiding himself, but she had clutched it tightly, and would not give it up. At length it would find its way back into the waistband of her sarong.

Not until they learned from Mr. Tench that on the morrow they would be taken from the ship to stand before a magistrate did James enlist the other men to help him do what he had told Mrs. Parker they would not do. They forcibly washed Mary as well as they could and dressed her in the gown given her by Mrs. Parker. Although it was far from fresh, it was not as filthy as her remaining scrap of sarong. Nor would it have her attracting stares on the streets of London as if she were a witch.

Difficult though it was to wash and dress her, it was more difficult still to persuade her to give up the comb. Finally she drew in on herself so completely that she did not seem to notice when James took it, and did not struggle during the hours it took to untangle her long hair and re-weave it into a braid down her back.

When James had finished that task, he put the comb back in her hand, closed her fingers around it, and slipped hand and comb into a pocket of the gown. It was all Mary had in the world to call her own, and he wanted to make sure she knew where it was. If indeed she knew anything at all.

It was in this condition that Mary, along with the other prisoners, was taken from the ship. As they were about to be placed in a police van for conveyance to court to appear before a magistrate, Mary suddenly lifted her head. Looking about at the gathered crowd, she spoke her first word since Charlotte’s funeral. “England.”

“Yes, Mary,” James said, joy leaping in his eyes. “England.”

He must have believed, just then, that she was to recover her senses as quickly as she had lost them. But this was not to be.