Convictions (19 page)

“We’ll all make it,” Nate said quietly beside her.

Jennie managed a small tight smile.

When the crew from the other ship returned with an extra set of oars, Nate sent Coombs and Edwards off and continued to help arrange the eldest women for the next trip. The jolly boat only held a few people at a time along with the four rowers and it was several trips before it was Jennie, Sarah and Alice’s turn.

Jennie adjusted the leather medicine satchel and squeezed next to Sarah and Alice on the narrow wooden seat. Nate was the last one to get on board with them. He wedged himself onto the floor of the jolly boat between Jennie’s feet. She felt his damp back against her legs and a warmth spread through her.

The wind had turned strangely still, but there were even darker clouds hovering above them. Jennie wondered when the storm would break. The sullenness of the sky merging with the granite water was oppressive, the air clammy.

“The calm before the storm,” Sarah said, glancing at the sky. She held Alice closer. Jennie willed the men to row faster.

They were more than halfway to the ship, when gusts of wind whistled around them, whipping salt spray into their faces. Although the storm held off, the closer they got to the ship, the choppier the water became. Jennie looked up at the long rope
ladder they had to climb. If they fell into the sea, they would be swept away.

Although Nate helped her get a firm footing on the ladder, it swayed ominously. Partway up, Jennie froze. She couldn’t go back down, and her hands didn’t want to pull her up. Her throat constricted. She closed her eyes.

“Keep going,” Nate hollered from below.

Sarah was fast on Jennie’s heels, but seemed unable to speak
or move either. When Jennie looked down, Sarah gripped the
rungs, white-knuckled. Jennie’s heart thumped violently
in her chest.

An older sailor yelled from above, “Look up here!”

Jennie riveted her eyes on the kindly faced man.

“Old Ruddick will get you up, don’t you worry none.” The elderly man spoke calmly in a soft Scottish lilt. “Move your hands up one at a time.”

Jennie inched her hand onto the next rung and pulled, slowly lifting a foot. Her whole body swayed with the movement. She tensed and held her breath until she steadied. Resting her weight against the bow of the ship, she dared not look down again.

“Now the next one,” Ruddick encouraged.

Jennie reached up with her other hand, and then lifted a foot, then another. Bit by bit she made her way to the top, keeping her focus on the wiry old sailor. At the top he leaned over and grabbed her arms, pulling her up until he caught her by the waist. Jennie was astounded by the strength in the sinewy old seaman, as he swung her over the rail and plunked her on the deck. She stood there shaking, as he reached for Sarah.

A younger sailor threw a blanket around Jennie and guided her to sit out of the wind against the bulwark with the other women. Someone else brought her water.

She clutched the cup. “Thank you,” she whispered, gulping the stale, but reviving drinking water. She swished it around her mouth and let it dribble down her throat. She passed the tin cup to Sarah, as the older woman collapsed heavily against her.

One by one, the rest of the women were brought on board. Nate came up behind Alice at the last. Alice was as white as a new sail when she collapsed into Jennie and Sarah’s arms.

“It was horrible. I just dangled,” sobbed Alice. “The wind banged me against the ship and out again.”

“There, there, my pet, you’re all right now,” Sarah consoled her.

Jennie imagined how difficult it would have been for Alice. The rungs were so far apart and she was such a young slip of a girl. She’d have been blown about with the wind gusts.

“Nate saved me,” Alice gulped between sobs.

Jennie felt a rush of gratitude. She looked over at Nate with a blanket spread over his broad shoulders, swilling back a cup of water. He shook the sailor’s hand and was guided to the captain’s cabin. He pointedly ignored Red Bull standing some distance
away with the other sailors, including Coombs and Edwards.

Jennie asked a passing crewman if they might have the water cup filled for Alice. When it arrived, she patted the distressed girl. “Here, Alice, drink this.”

Alice gulped back her sobs and took a long drink, choking on the last of it. Jennie tapped Alice on the back until she stopped coughing, then Sarah cuddled her close.

All around them women whispered and eyed the actions on board the ship. The crew of the
Lady Margaret
seemed to be biding their time, waiting for orders. The sails were at quarter mast, flapping without any power in the wind. The ship rocked on the rough water.

Coombs and Edwards, along with Red Bull, clustered together some distance away with some of the crew of the
Lady Margaret
, waiting for orders to get underway.

Jennie heard him tell the men how, when the ship tore asunder, the quarterdeck went down first, and then the section with the captain’s cabin.

“That and the mizzen and mainmast.” Red Bull plied the men with tales of
his
narrow escape from death. “I did my best to hold the sails steady…”

Jennie turned away, ignoring his gravelly, bragging voice. She didn’t want to listen to his lies. Nor did she want to relive the horrors of the day before. She was glad when one man broke away from the group and called for order, although he had a strange smirk on his sharp-looking face when he caught Jennie’s eye.

“I am the first mate – Lieutenant Davis. The captain will address you in due course when a tactic has been decided upon for all of you. In the meantime, I’m sure you all know where the head is,” he pointed forward, “and we’ve set up the privies for your use at any time, entering through this hatchway.” He bobbed his head to his right. “That’s all.”

He turned to the crew and ordered, “Make fast the sails and tack the vessel!”

Being close to the hatchway, Jennie was one of the first in the queue. The wooden ladder into the hull was much the same as had been in the
Emily Anne
, though the steps were more worn with rounded edges. Candle lanterns lit their way, and even though she was among the first to use them, the privies on either side of the stern were equally soiled and foul smelling as they had been on the prisoner ship.

What amazed Jennie the most, though, was the crammed conditions of the hold with all the cargo and ship’s stores packed from floor to gunwales. The pens of animals were at one end, and there was a maze through the stacked cargo to get to the privies. She stumbled and banged into kegs and crates and bales of hay and wool. She was sure a rat darted over her foot. The smell below was fetid and disgusting. She held her hand over her nose and did her business as fast as she could.

On her way back, she noticed all the hammocks for the sailors jammed together at the other end. With the sleeping quarters of the men full and the rest of the hull bursting with merchandise to be traded, Jennie wondered where the captain would put their group. At least there were only fifteen or so to be bedded down. The floor looked none too healthy.

The ship suddenly trembled and creaked, and Jennie knew they were underway. When would they find out where they were going? What had been worked out so far?

After returning topside, Jennie’s thoughts focused on when they might be fed. Her body quivered with hunger. She sagged down once again beside Sarah and the sleeping Alice, who lay with her head in Sarah’s lap.

“What do you think is going to happen to us now?” Jennie asked with a sense of foreboding.

Sarah met her eyes with the same haunted look, and shrugged without answering.

Jennie tucked the blanket tighter around Alice. What was their fate going to be? How long would they have to wait to learn it? She shuddered and pulled her blanket tighter.

Chapter Sixteen

Jennie allowed her thoughts
to drift to her companions
lost at sea.
Kate, Lizzie, Flo and Gladys
. She was saddest about Kate, of course, but Lizzie had become special to her too.

Feeling suddenly confined and needing to stretch, Jennie got to her feet and paced the deck in small circles in front of the rest of the women. When no movement by the crew was made to restrain her, she walked to the stern, leaned against the railing and gazed across the churning water.

“Get yourself over there and sit down,” ordered Red Bull in Jennie’s ear.

Jennie stepped back from the bully, bumping into someone behind her. She whipped around to see Meadows, glaring at Red Bull.

“This isn’t our ship, Chilcott. Let her be.”

For an instant Red Bull looked like he might attack Meadows, but he turned on his heels and sauntered away. Anyone else watching might have thought he had come out the winner of the confrontation, but Jennie saw the tension in his neck and knew he seethed with anger.

“Thank you,” said Jennie, though fear crept up her spine. They must all watch their backs.

Meadows dipped his head, and strolled in the other direction.

Jennie turned back to the sea, leaning once again over the railing. The ship made a wide sweep around the wreckage, changing course it seemed. Lost in thought, Jennie took several
moments to recognize the shape of a figure amongst the bobbing
debris. It looked like a woman. The longer she looked, the more she thought she caught a glint of long copper-coloured hair.

“Sarah, come here!” she called quickly.

“What is it?” The older woman dislodged Alice and hurried to her side.

“Look over there. Just beyond that patch of wreckage. Isn’t that a woman?”

“Yes, I see her!” Sarah said with excitement. By then several women had joined them.

“Maybe it’s Kate.” Jennie said.

“Sure could be,” agreed Fanny.

Jennie called out to the crew. “There’s someone still out there! We have to go back for her.”

Lieutenant Davis rushed over and looked where she indicated.

“No go, lass,” he said. “The way that storm is coming up, we’ll be lucky to get out of its way as it is.” He looked at the ominously darkening sky.

“Please, you have to try,” Jennie insisted.

A great clamouring ensued between the women egging Jennie on with her repeated pleas and the first mate who continued to resist.

Nate came over. Meadows followed swiftly on his heels with the captain of the
Lady Margaret
.

“What’s going on here, Lieutenant?” the captain bellowed at his first mate.

Jennie interrupted. “Please sir, there’s still someone out there. We have to go back.”

The captain stared where she pointed. “Hmmff. Could be anything,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s not moving.”

Jennie leaned over and took another look. There wasn’t any movement now. “That doesn’t mean she’s not alive,” Jennie protested.

“She?” asked the captain.

“Yes, I think it might be Kate. She’s an Irish girl with red hair.” Jennie kept watching.

The captain motioned to the second mate, who handed him his spyglass. He focused on the spot.

“Well?” Jennie asked.

“Could be someone,” he admitted. “No way to tell if they’re alive or dead from this distance.” He turned to leave.

“Wait! She moved again!” Jennie pointed.

The captain focused his spyglass again. “Aye, there might be someone there.”

“
Please
, sir!” Jennie begged.

Sarah joined in. “She helped save me and Alice.”

“Without her we would have died,” said Alice.

“We can’t leave her out there if there’s a chance we can rescue her,” Jennie pleaded.

The captain grimaced. “All you limeys and now a bleedin’ mick? I don’t know what I’m going to do with the lot of you as it is – and all convicts at that.”

Jennie felt her cheeks flush as the captain considered her with a cold stare. She bit the inside of her lip.

“Please, sir.” She managed a thin smile. “She’s my friend. She deserves a chance to be saved. She’s a good person.” Jennie spoke quietly, hoping she wasn’t jeopardizing all of their chances at a safe haven. Nate sensed her desperation and came to her side. “I don’t know how we could have missed her.”

Meadows shook his head. “Hidden until the ship changed position. Or the wind may have moved her.”

“I’d be up for going back,” Nate said firmly. He looked at Meadows.

Meadows nodded. “Captain MacGregor, Nate and I are willing to go for her.”

“But the weather, man! You’ll no be able to get back safely if it breaks,” Captain MacGregor objected.

“We’ll use our jolly boat,” said Meadows. “We won’t risk any of your men.”

“I’ll go too, sir.” Coombs stepped forward.

“Good man, Coombs,” said Meadows.

Jenny looked at Red Bull. He had sauntered away and busied himself with eyeing the rigging. It was obvious he had no intention of volunteering.