Convictions (2 page)

“Sorry, dearie,” said the matronly woman behind her.

Managing to stand upright once more, Jennie felt nauseated as she gasped and smelled the stench of dead fish and decaying seaweed. She swallowed hard.

“Can you manage?” the stout woman from behind asked.

Jennie nodded, though she felt weaker than she had ever been on her hungriest days. Taking shallow breaths through her mouth, she managed to hold back the nausea.

“We’ll soon be out of this heat,” the woman added.

Jennie glanced back and murmured, “Thank you.”

“Sarah Givens. From London. Chimney sweep’s wife. Seven children, youngest nine,” she puffed. Wisps of brown frizzy hair clung to her plump face.

Jennie spoke over her shoulder. “I’m Jennie – uh – Mary Jane Lawrence. My family calls me Jennie. I’m most recent from Manchester, before that Warrington.”

“You’re young.”

“Fourteen, last month,” Jennie said. She pushed back her shoulders.

“Same age as my Susan.”

Through further snippets of whispering, Jennie learned that Sarah Given’s sentence stemmed from a false accusation of stealing a handkerchief. She had been returning it to the owner, who had dropped it as she alighted from a carriage.

“You can be sure I won’t be so obliging next time,” said Sarah.

The red-bearded guard stormed toward them.

“No talkin’, you. Eyes straight ahead!”

He prodded Jennie in the chest with a stick. She clamped her mouth shut, her face burned with shame.

Jennie moved along, staring straight ahead for several moments before peeking upwards. Hundreds of masts and spars prodded the sky. She would soon be on one of the tall vessels. This really was the end of the only life she knew. What would happen to her when they landed in Van Diemen’s Land some four or five months from now? A jolt of terror shot through her.

If only her family hadn’t been hungry. If only she had not been so desperate to find something for them to eat, she would never
have taken the sack of oats – a discarded mouldy sack at that.

Passengers, sailors, merchants and dockworkers hustled along the pier, dodging Jennie and the long string of women, passing goods over their heads when they couldn’t go around. As the women threaded their way around stacked crates and bales of tobacco and silk, Jennie caught the welcome scent of tea and spices.

Farther along, cows, goats, sheep and horses were prodded from holding pens. Jennie watched dockworkers secure the livestock one at a time into a four-bellyband harness. With a boom that swung from the quay, they hoisted the livestock up and over, then lowered the bellowing beasts through a top cargo hatch into the hold. Jennie knew how the animals felt.

Behind her, the red-bearded guard laughed. “Mates, look at this fat ’un. Can’t even stand up proper.”

Jennie glanced back in disgust as he shoved his stick into the chains between Sarah Givens’ feet and twisted.

Sarah almost pulled others down with her, but Jennie and the woman behind Sarah wedged themselves to hold her upright. Little Alice clutched at Jennie.

Still chuckling, the guard continued up the line. Jennie glanced over her shoulder, but another guard was coming up behind them.

“I’m all right,” the stout woman assured Jennie in a loud whisper. Under her breath Jennie was sure she heard Sarah mutter, “Bloody Cockney bastard.”

A whip cracked near Jennie. She recoiled. The line lurched when the guard struck someone with a club. Alice cried out as the guards continued poking and prodding the women.

Suddenly, the progression stopped.

Sarah said, “This is it then.”

Jennie craned her neck to see ahead. Others did the same, whispering.

“Silence!” yelled a scar-faced guard standing near the ramp to the ship. “Your turn to board will come soon enough!”

Beside them, a dark hulk was moored parallel to the wharf. Jennie shuddered. The
Emily Anne
would be her prison for the duration of the sea voyage.

As those at the front of the line began their ascent, the flimsy wooden gangplank rocked. The women shuffled forward a lit
tle, then stopped again. Moved. Stopped. The sporadic progress seemed to go on forever under the baking sun. One by one, the guards directed the women onto the swaying gangway. Jennie’s fear increased with each step.

Around her, ankle shackles and chains clanked. Tackles and pulleys screeched as shouting dockworkers loaded the last crates and barrels of provisions onto the vessels. Heartfelt shouts of good-bye from family members all along the wharf merged with officers’ sharp commands to sailors. Warders hollered directions to the convicts. Every sound clanged in Jennie’s head, until she thought she’d explode.

She scanned the crowd again. Had her mother really not come? Jennie’s steps faltered. The gangway wobbled as she stepped onto it and pitched against the rope railing.

“Steady,” Sarah whispered.

Jennie’s legs stiffened with each step up the ramp. She pushed
away the tales that had been whispered in prison. Those about harsh discipline and deadly sickness of convicts transported to the colonies. When she spotted the soldiers with guns leaning over the poop deck railing above them, she shivered. She forced images of home to crowd out the horrors she imagined.

She thought of her mother’s kind face and the laughter they shared with her two sisters in the tiny room above a milliner’s shop. It was not much more than a storeroom that her mother had found after her father’s death, but at least they had been warm and dry. The small fireplace offered a place to cook their meagre meals and gave them some warmth from the scavenged coal they burned in the winter months. The family had been safe and together, unlike many others who had lost the main wage earner in the household.

If she hadn’t stolen from the rubbish bin, they would all be safe at home now – her mother, her eleven-year-old sister, Beth, and herself – hand-sewing throughout the day with eight-year-old Ann helping as best she could. They would continue long into the night, long after Ann fell sound asleep on the straw pallet she shared with their mother. Jennie would miss cuddling next to Beth for warmth at night. If only they had been able to find another outlet to sell their finely stitched gloves and handkerchiefs – some outlet where the seller would not cheat them out of their pay.

Jennie’s footsteps dragged behind Alice’s trembling body as she neared the top of the long, narrow ramp. One more step and she’d be severed from her family, perhaps forever. Even if her
sentence was only for seven years, how would she be able to re
turn? What would become of her family while she was gone? Her stomach reeled and her knees almost gave way. What would become of
her?

She had to see her mother one last time. Jennie pulled up short, causing another chain reaction and groans of dismay. The gangplank rocked.

“Get on with ya!” ordered a thin warder with a face like a wizened apple.

Jennie clamped her toes onto the bare wood, straining to scan the crowded quay. Was her mother there?

Whack!

Jennie’s shoulder flared with pain. The red-bearded guard raised his wooden club to strike again. The wizened-faced warder grinned.

Alice whimpered and crouched down. Sarah stood in shock.

“Move!” the bull-like guard roared, his red beard bristling. He shoved Jennie toward the deck. She stumbled but clung to the rope. She couldn’t go without seeing her mother. Jennie leaned hard into the rope, shaking.

The “Red Bull” pushed her again.

“Wait!” she shouted.

Startled, the guard paused.

In that instant, Jennie glimpsed the distraught figure of her mother, moving a little apart from the others. Her tiny frame seemed shrunken. She clutched Jennie’s dark-haired sisters to her as if they were the only things keeping her upright.

Jennie held her head high and looked into her mother’s eyes. Ada Lawrence spoke to her younger daughters and they immediately stood tall, though tears streaked down their faces. Jennie nodded. Her mother, holding a white handkerchief, reached out her hand in a futile gesture. That was the last
Jennie saw of her family before Red Bull shoved her again, and she plunged face down onto the deck.

Chapter Two

Jennie’s knees smarted
as she fell.
Her face scraped along the rough wooden deck. Behind her, Sarah and the other linked convicts tumbled along the pitching gangplank. The women grumbled and swore as they clung to the swaying ropes.

Red Bull snatched Jennie up and smacked her across the face.

“Try sommat like that again, and ye’ll regret it,” he snarled. He yanked the women behind her to their feet.

Jennie’s mouth quivered. She ran her tongue over her lips and tasted blood.

The wizened-faced guard wrenched off Jennie’s two sets of shackles. “Git over there.” He indicated the spot beside Alice.

The young girl stood uncertainly next to the mainmast near the captain’s cabin, her face awash with shock. Jennie strained to keep back tears as she shuffled unsteadily through the tangle of ropes. With a shaky hand, she wiped her mouth.

The guard moved on to Sarah. He unfettered her and shoved her beside Jennie. Sarah clucked quietly. Without a word, she used the hem of her dress to wipe the blood off Jennie’s split lip.

One by one, the restraints came off each prisoner. As they appeared on board the women lined up again, next to Alice, Jennie and Sarah. Jennie massaged her bruised wrists, avoiding the worst chafed spots. Her ankles hurt too, but her mouth throbbed the most.

In a stupor, she stared across the harbour, watching fishing boats bobbing their way down the River Mersey toward Liverpool Bay and thence into the Irish Sea. After that it was the vast nothingness of the Atlantic Ocean and a life Jennie couldn’t begin to fathom.

A swarthy warder with a scar across the left side of his face strode up to Jennie, his fetid breath hot on her face. He pawed at her dress and down her front with beefy fingers, muttering about searching for knives, matches or any other dangerous instrument she might have.

Jennie froze. She knew she had to submit or endure being struck again. But she couldn’t stop the wave of panic that pressed against her chest.

“Can never be too careful with the likes of you,” the guard leered. When his pudgy hands squeezed her bottom, his eyes lit with the pleasure of humiliating her.

She forced herself to stand as still as stone. To keep her revulsion at bay, her mind struggled through memories of her family
–
anything to block out the horrible assault on her body from this scar-faced man. But the panic rose from her stomach, almost making her choke, when he squeezed her breasts. A terrified, mewling sound escaped from her throat.

She jerked her head and caught sight of a young guard standing near the hatchway. His face reddened and his brown eyes filled with an expression she couldn’t name
–
anger, pity, disgust.

Scarface leered again as he clutched Jennie’s bottom one last time. Then he motioned her farther along the deck to where an older thin man with a shock of grey hair and spectacles sat at a small wooden table.

“Inspection. Give him your name, and be quick.” The scar-faced guard pushed Jennie forward, then reached for Sarah.

Legs like wood, Jennie shuffled to stand in front of the seated man. Her throat tightened so much she could barely mumble her name.

“Another Mary! You must be the twentieth one so far. Don’t know how you’ll keep yourselves straight!” The older man peered at his sheet and made a tick.

“I’m Mary Jane, called Jennie at home,” she said, but he ignored her response.

“Do a full turn.” He twirled his index finger in a quick circle without looking up.

Jennie rotated with halting steps until she faced him again. He hardly glanced at her, not even noticing her split lip and scraped face. He pointed her toward the opening into the black depths of the ship.

Jennie willed herself forward, but her feet wouldn’t move. Her mind went blank.

“You agen,” a voice growled close to her ear.

She felt a sharp prod in her back. Glancing quickly over her shoulder, she saw Red Bull with a smirk on his face.

“Keep this up an' it will be a restricted cell with plenty of beatings for ya.”

Then a gentle, but firm hand touched her arm.

“Come, luv. We must be strong.” Sarah led her forward. “We’ll see this through together.”

The kind words shook Jennie out of her paralysis. She moved
toward the dark hatch. Already she could feel the stifling heat rising. With one last deep breath of salty sea air, Jennie sank into the belly of the ship. Halfway down, one foot slipped and she scraped her already painful ankle against the edge of a wooden rung. The added injury brought her to full attention. She’d never felt so miserable. Tears prickled at her eyelids.

At first, after the bright sunlight outside, Jennie couldn’t see much of anything in the steerage hold. Around her, she could hear the sounds of moving bodies, rustling clothes and shuffling feet. And she was sure she heard the scrabbling of rats. The rough talk of the guards and orders for the crew coming from the dark void added to her bewilderment.