The Convict Ship, Volume 3 (of 3)

By this time the awning had been spread. In the cuddy a crowd of convicts were roaring out the chorus of some vulgar popular song of that time. Will said: ‘We have had nothing to eat. Aren’t you hungry?’

‘Here, you!’ exclaimed Tom to the fellow at the helm. ‘Jump below to the cuddy and bring us some food and wine to breakfast off. I’ll not trust this young gentleman amongst them. You’re known as a friend. Johnstone, hold the wheel.’

The man went like a dog to the companion-hatch and disappeared down it.

‘A worthy example of the British sailor,’ said Tom. ‘He’s one of those fellows who’d swear a man’s life and liberty away for a noggin of rum. D’ye see that boat, Marian?’ He pointed to a long thin boat, called the captain’s gig, that hung by davits over the stern, with the line of her gunwale on a level with the taffrail. ‘She’ll give us our chance. Johnstone, that’ll be the boat we’ll make off in. The sooner the better. Hark to them below! Oh, my dear heart, what has your love for me brought you into? Johnstone, the equipment of that boat will be your duty. I shall hold you responsible for everything being in its place when we come to want her.’

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ answered the lad, with the habit of a sailor in answer to an order.

‘Is it true, Tom, that they’d hang you if they found you in command of this ship?’ said I.

‘There’s been murder and piracy, and the ringleaders would be hanged, and I, found in command of the ship, would be reckoned a ringleader. But do not fear. They’re not going to catch me. We’ll be out of the vessel soon, though heaven help the unhappy ruffians when it comes to our leaving them.’

Presently the sailor came up out of the cuddy. He brought a bottle of sherry, a broken tumbler, a plate of white biscuit, and some tinned meat. He said sullenly, as he put the stuff down on the grating, that it was all he could find. There wasn’t a whole tumbler to be seen.

‘Them convicts is gone mad,’ he said, as he sulkily grasped the wheel. ‘Them as ain’t singing’s fighting. The cabin floor’s a-running with blood. They’re mostly the young ’uns. I never bargained for the likes of this raree-show. What’s a-going to befall the fired ship if this sort of carrying-on’s to last?’

‘It was to be a roasting hot job,’ said I pointing to the injured topgallantmast.

He gave me an evil look, but, meeting Tom’s eyes, turned his head and stared away into the white, sultry, stagnant distance. I kept my back upon the bloodstains; I could not have held them in view and tasted food. Whilst we ate and drank we heard Mr. Bates calling out orders on the main-deck. I met Tom’s glance; he faintly smiled; it was the first time I had seen him smile. But, indeed, the tragedy of the morning became a kind of burlesque, when you thought of the chief mate of the ship, dressed as a convict, giving orders under the eye of Barney Abram, who was himself clothed in the apparel of the captain.

We moved forward a little way to get well into the shelter of the awning and out of hearing of the fellow at the wheel. The bottle had been half full. We emptied it and threw it and the broken tumbler overboard, and talked whilst we watched the motions of the convicts on the main-deck and listened to the choruses of the brutal revellers in the cuddy. Some of the mutinous sailors went aloft with tackles on the main and fore-yards; meanwhile a number of the convicts cleared away the long-boat, a large, squab fabric which lay stowed forward of the galley. Tom said she was big enough to safely carry forty souls.

‘I wish you and I and Will there were in her,’ said he, out of sight of this ship. ‘But she’ll provide us with the opportunity we want,’ he added, with a sideway motion of his head towards the gig over the stern.

‘What are your plans after we leave the ship?’ said I. ‘The gig’s a little boat for this vast sea.’

‘My plans,’ he answered, making as if he would take my hand, and arresting the gesture with a fierce glance at the helmsman, ‘are first of all to get away. The rest must be our fortune. Anyhow, we’ll endeavour to keep afloat till we’re picked up.’

‘It might run into weeks before we fall in with a ship just here,’ said Will, ‘and what’s to happen then? It’s very well for Marian and me--what’s to become of you, sir?’

‘What’s to become of Tom?’ cried I. ‘If you mean that, you must ask what’s to become of me too.’

Tom stood up and said: ‘The convicts mustn’t see us always together, and particularly will it not do for them to see us talking earnestly. They’re felons, with the suspicions and passions of felons. I’m going to the captain’s cabin.’

He walked briskly to the companion-way, at which he paused to look steadily round the sea, and then disappeared.

‘Why do you take me up so sharply, Marian?’ said Will.

‘Call me Marlowe. Suppose you should be overheard? Sharply? Why do you ask what’s to become of Tom? It never could be right with me if it’s to be wrong with him. And yet you say it’ll be all right for you and me if we’re picked up.’

‘If we’re picked up he may be carried to England. What then?’

‘We’ll not allow ourselves to be picked up by a ship going to England.’

‘We may be nearly dead with thirst and without provisions. Look what a sea it is! Do you know where we are? This is the junction of the two Atlantics. If you are dying of thirst you’ll be glad to be picked up, though the ship we should fall in with were bound to--to----’ And my cousin, with an expressive face, pointed downward.

‘Don’t talk to me. Leave it all to Tom. He is an old sailor, and will he risk the liberty he has got this day? I would sink and drown in his arms sooner than stay in this detestable ship, or not be by his side wherever he goes!’

‘Aye, that’s all very well. But I’m to make one in the boat, remember. I’m very sorry for Butler, and like him greatly, although hang me if I think his prison experience has improved his manners. But I don’t see my way to go down hand in hand with him.’

‘Hold your tongue!’ I cried. ‘The darling saved your life, and this is your gratitude!’

He got up and walked aft, and stood looking at the gig.

I walked to the poop-rail and gazed down at the mass of convicts who filled the decks. Some of them were throwing the remains of the barricades overboard. A considerable group stood near the port gangway, and every one of that gang carried a soldier’s musket, with its bayonet fixed. Some of those fellows had acted as first and second ‘captains’ under the doctor. They were now less noisy in the cuddy; a few in that interior did, indeed, continue to drunkenly shout out choruses. Here and there a felon roamed with lurching steps, and often with a cut face and blood upon him as though from a savage scuffle; but I soon noticed that if this sort of fellows got into the people’s way they were elbowed and kicked without ceremony even to the extent of being thrown headlong. Most of the noisiest and the wounded people were young. In truth, already was I sensible of a change in the bearing of the unhappy men. They stood in bodies watching what was going forward. The first clamorous, brutal transports, the early delirious passions which successful rebellion and the possession of freedom had excited, were sobering. Perhaps they had not met with drink enough yet to make them all the fierce, wild, shouting, exulting demons some of them had been changed into by the cuddy drams. Be this as it may, there was less confusion; the senseless bawling had become rare. On deck, the shouts broke only from the throats of tipsy scoundrels aimlessly issuing out of the cuddy into the quarter-deck throng, where, as I have said, they would be hustled and kicked, and sometimes forced into silence by being knocked down.

Mr. Bates, no longer distinguishable from the felons who remained clothed in the convicts’ garb, stood at the gangway, superintending the hoisting and lowering of the long-boat over the side. Some of the convicts worked as though they had been sailors in their day. Close beside the little mass of armed men stood Barney Abram, and near him were five or six convicts, variously attired in plundered clothes. These fellows were, without exception, of the better class of prisoners. Most of them had filled positions of some little trust under the doctor, such as cook and barber, and I guessed that they were among the recognised heads of the risen criminals.

Will joined me and began to talk of the gig and the difficulty of safely lowering a boat hanging athwartships when a vessel was in motion. I bid him leave everything to Tom and do as he was told--that is, to see that the gig was furnished ready for getting away in. He burst into a laugh at sight of Mr. Bates, and for some time could not recover his composure; in truth, the poor fellow seemed a little hysterical, and after we had been standing a few minutes drew me away, saying; ‘Let’s go over to starboard; the sentry was killed just here, and I keep on seeing his face as they threw him over the side.’

Several of the convicts came out of the cuddy by way of the companion-hatch and, finding the poop a clear deck, began to play at leap-frog and to gambol and hop and cut capers with the grace of frisky cart-horses. Their ugly faces and rowdy behaviour made a slum or back alley of that white deck. The beauty of the sea, the brilliance of the blue heavens, the fiery sparkles and lights in the polished brass and glass about the poop vanished. Those tumbling convicts instantly brought with them a flavour of London fog. The air resounded with the cry of the costermonger; an evil odour of decayed vegetables attended them, and you seemed to hear the music of the barrel-organ.

They came floundering and skylarking and caper-cutting up to where Will and I were standing; they gathered about us, and Will was for moving off, but I held my ground; I did not love their language, believe me, but it would not do to seem shy of them. They were flushed with drink, and talked rapidly and thickly in the most intolerable, coarse speech you can imagine; yet they were not so drunk as to be unintelligible. Seemingly they had been amongst the most successful in plundering the cabins. One pulled out Captain Sutherland’s gold watch, and, dangling it on high by its chain as though playing at bob-cherry, roared out: ‘This is the thumble! Here’s the yack for a nob’s gurrell!’ Another produced a pin, a third a large old-fashioned silver watch, which Will whispered had belonged to the second mate. Their talk was a compound of oaths and thieves’ slang, but they took not the least notice of me or Will; they jabbered hoarsely and thickly and swiftly amongst themselves, as though on the eve of coming to blows, breaking off presently, however, to watch the long-boat rising out of her chocks when the tackles were manned by some score or two of felons.

The great boat was got over as smartly as though all concerned in lifting and lowering her were sailors. All necessary information as to where stores, fresh water, and so forth were to be found had doubtless been obtained from Mr. Bates. Anyhow, no time had been lost, but soon after the boat had been floated a number of people, under the superintendence of some of those men whom I had taken to be the leaders, rolled a cask of fresh water, a tierce or two of beef, two or three barrels of flour and biscuit, and other matters which my memory does not carry, to the open gangway, and very rapidly all these things were stored in the boat alongside.