The Convict Ship, Volume 2 (of 3)

On their going out, Tom shut the door and locked it, then, catching me in his arms, called me by twenty caressing words and kissed and blessed me for my love and devotion. I cried and lost my self-control, and some time elapsed before we were composed enough to talk. He then spoke of the Arab Chief, and told me again how the conspiracy against him had been contrived. His face blackened and he turned motionless with wrath when he mentioned Rotch and the other. I see him now after he had said: ‘Marian, I swear by and before the great and just and merciful God of Heaven that I am as guiltless of the crime for which I am here as you, and that Rotch and Nodder——’ Then he stopped. He stood without a stir, his face blackened, and his eyes became enlarged and fixed. Nothing moved but his lips, which convulsively opened and shut. His expression was one of horror and dreadful rage.

I was terrified, and threw my arms round his neck and kissed him. He fetched two or three deep sighs, and picked his convict cap out of the upper bunk and fanned himself with it. He then quickly rallied, but turned as deadly pale as his looks had before been black and terrible, and held me by the hand a minute, watching me with a smile of heart-moving sadness. ‘But God will not suffer it! But God will not suffer it!’ he muttered brokenly; and a minute later, in a collected voice, he talked to me of his sufferings in the London jails, of what he had endured on board the hulk and in the dockyard.

I strove to bring him away from these maddening memories by speaking of myself, but I presently saw it did him good to let loose his thoughts.

Meanwhile, a second mob of convicts, attracted by the noise below, had come down into the steerage and were swelling the chorus of yells and oaths which the felons were roaring out. I heard a frequent splintering of wood, as though drawers and doors and lockers were being forced and smashed. The ruffians’ object, unless it were diabolic wantonness, I could not imagine; the cabins there were few. One was full of some kind of stores; then there was the pantry; the other berths were empty; maybe the villains beat and splintered the woodwork and did what injury they could with the tools they handled out of rage and spite at being baulked in their hunt for booty.

‘Do they mean to wreck the ship?’ said I. ‘Are they men or beasts? Listen to them!’

‘They’re beasts! Don’t I know! But why do they shout and roar? After the long discipline of silence, I could roar myself. It has made a devil of me.’

‘What you are, I am,’ said I.

He shook his head passionately, and said: ‘My business will be to get out of this ship with you quickly. They trust me, and their trust will be my opportunity. How long should I keep you in this ship of demons? There’s Bates and there’s young Johnstone. I have a scheme. The three of us are sailors.’

‘Are the convicts without any chiefs, without any head they are willing to own? If there’s no discipline, what must happen? They’ll get at the liquor; they’ll eat and waste the provisions; they’ll knock the ship to pieces and sink her. Is that the wretches’ idea of liberty?’

‘There are heads; Abram’s one. There are others I needn’t name. I’m supposed to be one, as taking charge of the ship. They’ll fall into some sort of order by-and-by. Many of them are not wholly beasts, and they’ll understand for their lives’ sake what’s wanted and what must be done. Marian, I had no hand in this business. They asked me if I’d navigate the ship if the prisoners seized her. I said yes, and that that would be my share in the outbreak. I’d do no more; I’d have no man’s blood upon my head. If they seized the ship, good and well; I’d navigate her to any agreed part of the world. Understand me, Marian, I am accountable for no life that has been lost to-day. What is that bundle?’

I explained.

‘The clothes may prove useful,’ said he. He pointed to the convict’s mattress on deck and said, ‘Has that been your bed?’

‘Yes, dear.’

He tossed his hands and looked at me with a face of sorrow and love, then put the parcel into my bunk and the mattress on top of it.

‘They’ll give me the captain’s cabin,’ said he, ‘and you must be near me. I couldn’t rest to think of you sleeping down here. The men’ll be filling these cabins; they’ll sleep in bowlines over the side sooner than occupy the prisoners’ quarters, though many of them’ll have to live down there all the same. Come with me on deck. I must see what’s doing.’

‘Be careful how you address me, Tom. I must be thought a boy whilst I am in this ship.’

We went out, and he locked the door after him and gave me the key. He shouted to the convicts, some of whom seemed to be dancing, others playing at leap-frog, whilst others again ran in and out of the pantry and cabins hallooing like madmen: ‘Let no man enter that berth! My friend occupies it, and that’s enough!’ He then passed his arm through mine, and we walked to the steps of the hatch that led into the cuddy.

I never could have imagined such a scene as this interior presented. Most of the tall, thin sheets of looking-glass had been shivered. The doors of the cabins lay open, and the decks were covered with the tossed and tumbled contents of rifled drawers, lockers, and boxes. The convicts had found good booty in these cabins. Here had slept the captain, the two mates, the military officers, and the surgeon-superintendent, and one or two spare berths aft had been filled with certain valuable consignments to Sydney, to which port the ship was to have proceeded after discharging her cargo of criminals at Hobart Town.

The place was crowded with the felons. They stood two and three deep at the table, which, as you will remember, I and my associate had prepared for breakfast. One of the aftermost berths had been used as a cabin larder; here the prisoners had found plenty to eat and drink. The table was strewn with tins of meat, pots of preserves, bottles of beer, biscuits, bones of ham, and so forth. The fellows bawled to one another to pass this and that; to hand the ale along; to sling that bottle of sherry across. They knocked the heads off the bottles and, after emptying them, threw them on the deck.

The drink had mounted into the heads of many, and the din of their shouts, songs, and laughter, their filthy language and hideous raillery, would have drowned the noise of a thunderstorm. Here and there lay portions of convicts’ clothes torn into shreds. Many of the felons were dressed in plundered apparel. A man at the foot of the table wore the doctor’s naval coat; others the clothes which had belonged to Lieutenant Chimmo and Captain Barrett. A few had attired themselves in the uniforms of these officers, one in a tunic, another in the trousers, a third in a military cloak. One fellow who ran past us had the subaltern’s sword strapped to his hip.

‘Which was the captain’s cabin?’ said Tom.

We looked into it; it had been sacked like the rest; the lockers opened and the contents looted; the lid of a large sea-chest was smashed as though by a chopper; but they had left the nautical instruments alone, perhaps guessing their importance. The chronometers were safe; there were sextants in their cases on a shelf; the nautical books of reference were untouched; but the charts had been emptied out of their bags, as though the convicts supposed more was to be found inside them than rolls of paper.

We stepped on to the main-deck. The barricades had been beaten down, and the decks were covered with chips and fragments of timber. I now understood what had occasioned the pounding noise I had heard. A dreadful stain of blood marked the spot where the quarter-deck sentry had been felled. A couple of convicts stood with muskets and fixed bayonets at the main-hatch. Some food and bottles of beer were beside them, and they drank and ate, and chatted in harsh syllables. The doors and barricade arrangements here had been demolished. Gratings covered the hatch. The cage-like bars which descended to the lower-deck, with the doorway to admit of the passage of but one man at a time, still remained. I supposed that the door in the steerage bulkhead was secured and guarded.

Thirty or forty convicts lingered about this part of the ship. They seemed the quietest portion of the vile rabble. They hung in groups or marched up and down in little gangs. Some were dressed in the clothes of the soldiers. Others, again, wore the jackets and coats of the seamen and soldiers. It was clear that the forecastle and barracks had been stormed and plundered, though possibly the chests of the loyal portion of the crew only had been rifled.

I looked about me for the sailors, and counted five or six talking to a little crowd of convicts near the ship’s galley. I saw nothing of Mr. Balls nor the other petty officers of the vessel. Tom said he supposed they had been driven below with the orderly part of the crew and were in the prisoners’ quarters together with the captain, the doctor, Captain Barrett, the survivors of the guard, the women, and others.

There might have been fifty or sixty convicts upon the poop. I spied Will standing beside a convict right aft. I took the man to be a convict until I had stared awhile, and then I saw it was Mr. Bates, the chief mate, who had evidently been forced to change clothes with a felon. Will, however, was dressed as usual. The wheel was deserted. The calm was profound; the sea flat and sheeting into the dim, hot distance like a surface of quicksilver. The sun was now high and pouring in splendour into the vast mirror of the deep, and his light was stinging with heat, early as the hour yet was.

A convict, flushed with drink, reeled up to me and shouted: ‘Here’s one that ain’t of us! Change clothes, my beauty! Off with them duds!’ and he pulled at his own coat in a drunken, wrestling way to remove it.

Tom took him by the throat, and, running him backward until he was abreast of the convicts’ galley, flung him into the door with a bitter curse, and the fellow fell with a crash. My sweetheart shouted to the mob of convicts who stood near the ship’s galley with the sailors:

‘Keep that drunken ruffian off me or I shall kill him! D’ye know my compact? If this lad is touched or hurt’—and he stepped back to put his hand on my shoulder, whilst he roared out these words in a voice of fury—‘you shall sail the ship amongst you! You shall run her ashore and drown every mother’s son aboard! You shall run her into a man-of-war, and find as many gibbets as you have necks!’

As he spoke, the drunken convict staggered out of the galley with blood on his face from his nose: he cursed wildly and incoherently, and was approaching Tom in a fighting posture.

‘It’s all right, Butler,’ bawled a felon, ‘get away aft to your quarters and look to the ship!’

‘It’s time!’ cried a seaman, and as this was said three of the convicts sprang upon the drunken convict and thrust him back into the galley.

‘Lie there!’ roared one of them. ‘Seizing the ship ain’t getting our liberty, curse you!’

Tom took my arm and we went toward the poop. I was terribly frightened. I shuddered and trembled, and said: ‘Where shall I find some convicts’ clothes? Think if I should be forced to change when you were not by to stop it!’

He halted at the foot of the poop-ladder and said: ‘Put this on and give me yours,’ and pulled off his convict coat. It was large and loose, and a more effectual disguise than Will’s serge jacket or my monkey-coat. It was Will’s serge that I handed Tom. He found it small and tossed it to a young convict who stood grinning at us whilst we changed coats.

‘I’ll find clothes when I want them,’ said he, and I followed him up the ladder.

There were several stains of blood about the poop-deck. The sight made me ill. Tom saw the sickness in my face and exclaimed: ‘The heat is too much for you. Go aft to your cousin; I’ll join you in a minute.’ He then, standing at the brass rail, shouted: ‘Aft, a couple of hands, and spread the awning; and lay aft a hand to the wheel! Do you hear?’

Strained as his voice had been by previous exertion, it still rang clear and high, and went through the ship with the carrying note of a bell. I paused when he shouted, and took notice that the convicts on the poop, who were as fairly orderly as the fellows in the waist, looked pleased on hearing him utter this command.

He followed me, and we joined Mr. Bates and Will. Despite my sickness, I found a difficulty in holding my face when I viewed Mr. Bates dressed as a convict. He immediately said, addressing me: ‘I see they have figged you out, also, but not to the heels, as I am. A fellow laid hold of me, though Abram had my arm with Johnstone on t’other side to let the gentry see that we were friends. Abram said: “Change with him. You’ll be safer in that dress and they’ll like you the better in it.”’

‘He’s right,’ said Tom.

Two sailors came aft to loose the little awning; a third man approached the wheel. He looked hard at Mr. Bates and burst into a laugh. The mate wisely turned his back upon him to conceal his temper, and held his peace.

It was no moment then to resent an insult, though this scoundrel seaman had been in Mr. Bates’s watch since the beginning of the voyage, and, with the rest of the sailors, had always been well used by him. Tom stepped up to the fellow and exclaimed in a tone of severity that made the man shrink: ‘I suppose that you know I am the commander of this ship now?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And I suppose you know that you are an infernal mutineer?’

The man stared at him in a hang-dog way; he was the fellow who had spoken on the forecastle that morning about the roasting job which lay before them.

‘My command,’ continued Tom, hissing his speech into the sailor’s face, ‘gives me unlimited power, and if I insist upon your being hanged, up you go! Mr. Bates is second in command, and he is your chief mate still. Laugh again if you dare!’

He lingered to stare at the man, who shuffled, spat, looked uneasily around him, but made no reply.

‘Bear a hand with that awning, then,’ shouted my sweetheart to the two seamen. ‘Larking, Jephson, Simmonds,’ he cried, addressing some of a knot of convicts who stood looking at the sailors, ‘help those two loafers, will ye? Show ’em what to do, and how it may be done quickly. We’ve been having our training, boys,’ he added, with a great violent laugh, ‘whilst those chaps have been a-bed sucking their pipes.’

Three of the convicts sprang to his orders, as sailors would to the command of an officer. I caught Mr. Bates staring at Tom with amazement and admiration. Just then Barney Abram, dressed in Captain Sutherland’s clothes, the brass button on either side the naval peak of his cap glittering in the sun, came out of a group of eight or ten of the felons, who had been earnestly and soberly talking abreast of the foremost quarter-boat, and walked up to us.

‘Dow, Butler,’ he said, ‘we wa’t your advice. The idea was to se’d the fellows below adrift. But can we spare the boats?’

The others of the select crew he had been talking to followed him and came about us. The crowd was quickly swelled; before Tom could fairly answer, the whole of the convicts on the poop were swarming aft to the wheel, near which we stood, to hear what was said.

Tom, standing erect, folded his arms upon his convict shirt and, gazing fixedly at the prize-fighter, said: ‘I’ll not counsel you. I accept no responsibility where life is concerned. That was understood.’

‘You cad give us ad idea?’

Tom shook his head. ‘You have put this ship into my hands and I’ll carry her where you will,’ said he. ‘I’ve got no ideas outside that.’

I heard some murmurs as of grumbling, and some of the ugly faces looked savage.

‘You may growl as you please,’ said Tom, running his eyes angrily along the crowd of felons. ‘I’ve agreed to undertake as much as you have a right to expect. In agreeing to take charge, I convert myself into head criminal aboard you here; and of you all, I’m the surest to be hanged if we’re taken. Act as you please. Do what you like. My part’s big enough, isn’t it?’

‘Yar might just answer a question!’ exclaimed a convict.

‘You want to turn the people below adrift,’ said Tom to Abram. ‘Do so.’

Mr. Bates looked at the sultry, breathless expanse of ocean; I caught his eye and witnessed horror and consternation in it.

‘How bany boats are we to give ’eb?’ said Abram.

‘Reckon the number of people, then find out the carrying capacity of the long-boat and quarter-boats. See that they are plentifully watered and provisioned. Give ’em a sextant and charts, sails, oars, and rudders; let them be wanting in nothing. It may tell for us, Abram. That’s all I mean to say—the rest you can do for yourselves.’

Whilst Tom spoke, the prize-fighter’s dead-black, fiery eyes were fixed upon Mr. Bates; his pock-marked face wore its habitual sardonic, leering, self-complacent expression.

‘Is it understood,’ said he, ‘that Bates is to help you to sail this ship?’

‘Certainly. I must have help. I’ve told you I can’t stand a twenty-four-hours’ watch. I ask for no better sailor to help me than Bates.’

‘He was one of the ship’s officers, and we’ll hold you responsible for his behaviour if you employ him,’ said one of the convicts, a tall, thin, gray-haired man, delicate, with something of refinement in his face, speaking with an educated accent.

‘Parsons, I can’t navigate this ship alone. I suppose you know that,’ said Tom, with heat.

‘We shall want to feel when we’ve turned in that we’re being honestly steered,’ answered the convict.

(Tom afterward told me that this man had been a surgeon in a fair way of practice in a London suburb, and had been sentenced to transportation for life for arson.)

‘What do you know about the sea?’ cried my sweetheart, with the utmost scorn. ‘Abram, I can endure sensible opposition, but this sort of jaw is swinish. My neck’ll fit a halter as well as his,’ he added, pointing to Parsons; ‘but my life is more precious, certainly, for you’d not miss him if he dropped overboard; but let me go, and if this gentleman,’ and here he clapped Bates upon the shoulder, ‘refused to stand by you, and carry you to an agreed part of the world, I’d give you a week to be dismasted, to be pumping for your lives, to be in the utmost extremity. Have you sought your liberty to end as puffed and green carcasses a hundred fathoms deep over the side if the sharks let you plumb that depth?’

‘There’s too buch talk,’ said Barney Abram. ‘Is every bad to be baster? Butler’s the agreed captid. He chooses Bates to help hib. Bates he shall have, ad to prove that we trust hib he shall give directions for getting the boat over and sedding the prisoders adrift. Cub along, sir, and give us the pleasure of hearing you sig out.’

He passed his giant arm through the poor mate’s and walked off with him in the direction of the main-deck. The convicts followed to a man, talking eagerly and tumultuously as they pressed forward in the wake of the two. I said softly, that the fellow at the wheel might not hear me: ‘They seem afraid of you, Tom.’

‘I am one of them,’ he answered, bitterly. ‘They are not afraid of me. But the thoughtful amongst them know they are helpless without me, and the other wretches are influenced by the few who can think.’

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME

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