The Convict Ship, Volume 2 (of 3)

I was awakened from a deep slumber by the glare of a lantern upon my eyes, by the weight of a heavy hand upon my shoulder, and by a deep voice roaring out: ‘Here y’are, then! Another convict, is it? Who’s to say what’s right aboard a craft where everything’s wrong? Out you come, my lively!’ And, still half asleep and blinded by the light and deafened by the fellow’s roaring voice, I was dragged as though I had been a child out of the sail and held erect.

A second man holding a lantern raised it to my face and peered at me. I had seen both fellows in this place before; they were the boatswain and the sailmaker.

‘What are you a-doing down here?’ said the sailmaker.

The boatswain now let me go, and I stood upright before the two men, still dazed and horribly frightened, though my wits were slowly returning.

‘I’m doing no harm,’ said I, blinking at the light, which, as it was held close, put an insufferable pain into my eyes. ‘I hid myself. I want to get to Australia.’

‘Australia, is it?’ thundered the boatswain. ‘Why, you young rooter, d’ye know we ain’t bound to Australia? Where did ye come aboard?’

‘Woolwich.’

‘D’ye know this is a convict ship?’

‘Yes, I know it.’

‘Has he been a-broachin’ of anything?’ said the sailmaker, holding high the lantern and slowly sweeping its light round the interior.

‘What are ye?’ said the boatswain, whose voice was louder than that of any man I had ever heard or could dream of.

‘A runaway boy,’ said I. ‘Take me on deck. I’m sick for the want of light.’

‘Sails, d’ye hear him?’ said the boatswain. ‘By the great anchor, as my old mother used to say, but here’s one I allow as has squeezed through the hawse-pipe on his road to the quarter-deck, for, hang me, if he hain’t a-hordering of us already.’

‘What’s your trade, Jimmy?’ said the sailmaker, addressing me. ‘Nuxman or jigger, or are you a lobsneaker, hey? Self-lagged, by the Lord!’

‘Come along aft and see the capt’n,’ said the boatswain.

He then spoke to the sailmaker about the sails which they had apparently descended to view, and, catching me by the arm, walked me under the hatch, where he came to a stand.

‘Been here since Woolwich, ye say?’

‘Yes,’ I answered.

‘All in the dark?’

‘Yes.’

‘What have you eaten and drunken?’

‘I brought some food with me.’

‘Are you one of a gang?’ And here he rolled a pair of large glassy eyes over the casks and coils of rope. He was a very powerful seaman, deeply bitten by small-pox and without a right ear.

‘I am alone,’ said I.

‘Up ye go!’ he cried, and he partly hoisted and partly tossed me through the hatch on to the upper deck.

It was broad day, though the interior of the forecastle into which I had emerged was gloomy. Beyond the forecastle-entrance the white and windy sunshine was coming and going to the frequent sweep of clouds athwart the sky. The brightness of that light thrilled my eyes with pain, and I turned my back upon it, putting my hand to my head for a few moments.

‘’Tisn’t everybody, mates, that goes to sea afore the mast as signs on,’ said the boatswain, generally addressing a few sailors who had risen from their sea-chests or lounged out of the shadow forward to look at me.

‘If this here was a female convict ship, Mr. Balls,’ said one of the men, ‘you’d find that that there covey was after one of the gals.’

‘Let him wash hisself,’ said another seaman, speaking with his hands plunged deep in his pockets, ‘and there’ll be nothen likelier aboard us. Dummed if he don’t remind me of my Mary Hann.’

‘Let’m sit,’ said another of the sailors. ‘I’ve got a drop of grog in my chest. I started on my first voyage in the fore-peak and knows what head seas mean down there to a country stomach.’

‘Sit and breathe,’ said the boatswain, backing me to a chest. ‘Fetch your sup along, Joe. He don’t look much of a rascal, do he?’ And I observed that he eyed me very closely and with looks of surprise and doubt which somewhat softened the fierceness of his one-eared, glassy-eyed face.

I was glad to sit. My strength had been fearfully overtaxed by confinement and by my mental sufferings and want of air. I was afraid I should faint and my sex be discovered. A pannikin with a dram of black rum in it was given to me. I smelt the fiery stuff and asked for water.

‘Neat, my warrior, neat, and down with it!’ cried the fellow who had given me the rum. ‘Water’s for washin’ in. Don’t talk of rum and water. Soap and water, my heart; that’s it.’

‘Give the lad water,’ said the boatswain. ‘Blowed if I’m going to take him aft drunk.’ One of the fellows brought a pannikin of water and turned a small quantity into the rum. I looked up into his face and thanked him with a smile and drank.

‘Ever at sea afore, Jacky?’ said a sailor.

‘D’ye hear the grit of old hoss in his squeak that you asks that?’ said the deep-lunged boatswain.

‘And to think,’ said a surly-looking sailor, ‘that the town-crier’s still a-ringing for him and his grandmother still a-calling at every public-house to see if he ain’t there!’

‘What d’ye say to a rinse, bo’, afore ye lays aft?’ said the fellow who had offered me the rum. ‘A clean face may stand the little chap in with the old man,’ said he, addressing the boatswain.

‘Have a clean-up, young ’un, afore I takes ye aft?’ said Mr. Balls.

‘Yes,’ I answered.