Convictions (6 page)

Jennie nodded. Standing topside in the fresh air was better than being below, but the feeling of sickness was not so much due to the rising and plunging of the ship. She was sick with terror.

Chapter Five

Walt appeared
in front of Jennie.
He dragged her midship to the edge of the ship where several crewmen hauled up buckets of water from the sea.

“Hands over the eyes,” he ordered. His sullen face registered no emotion.

Jennie couldn’t take in what he said. Her ankles throbbed from the chains. Walt grabbed her hand and thwacked it against her forehead.

Suddenly, icy seawater drenched Jennie. She shrieked. Rubbing her stinging eyes only made it worse. Rivulets of water eddied around her feet and over the edge of the deck. Strings of a filthy mop skimmed over her bare toes as a crewman swabbed at the puddles to hurry them along.

“Warned ya’.” The wizened-faced warder dipped an old rag into another bucket behind him and thrust it at her.

Gasping, Jennie tested the sodden rag – it had been dunked in fresh water. She wiped the salt water out of her stinging eyes.

“Got another dim-witted one, eh, Walt?” Red Bull smirked as he pushed Jennie into line again behind Hildy and a string of other dripping convicts. Jennie glared at Walt, then at Red Bull.

Her wet dress clung to her, revealing every part of her body. Her face burned as the crewmen gawked at her, yet she shivered in the cold wind. At least vomit no longer covered her and the others.

On wobbly legs, the chain of women reeled about the perimeter of the weather deck. Sporadically, Jennie grabbed onto the railing. They circled several times before Jennie was able to walk more steadily. On they tramped, past the cargo boom and the capstan, avoiding ropes, iron posts, hooks and leering sailors, past the jolly boat and longboat stored at the stern. Behind her, Sarah whispered encouragement as they followed the grooves worn in the planks. The continual beat of a drum kept them in step.

The warders were quick with their clubs if anyone lurched too far out of line. None did on purpose, but the pitching of the ship left many scrambling to stay upright and some had to stop and heave their stomach contents overboard.

Above, the tall sails whipped in the changing wind. An occasional seabird gave a sharp cry. Whinging pulleys and ropes on one of the sails being heaved in added to the cacophony of sounds. Jennie rejoiced at her first taste of freedom from the black hole below. Gradually her shift dried and her body warmed, even though the sky had turned cloudy.

Halfway up the line, Jennie spied Alice. The little girl looked peaked, and the chains were too heavy for her slight body as she staggered to keep up with the drumbeats. Jennie vowed to take Alice under her wing whenever she could.

Kate was ahead of Alice, with her red curls blowing into her face. In front of her was Fanny, the doxy – whatever that was. Jennie vowed again, this time to keep her distance from Fanny and Lizzie. And for now, Kate too. She’d stay near Sarah. She felt drawn to her, maybe because she reminded her a little of her grandmother. Sarah puzzled Jennie, though. She spoke like she’d had some education, but that didn’t suit what Jennie imagined of a chimney sweep’s wife.

Jennie ventured in a low voice over her shoulder, “Have you had some schooling, Sarah, if you don’t think it rude, my asking?”

“No, I’ve had naught,” the woman whispered.

“But your speech isn’t like, that is, you speak real well,” Jennie twisted back to look at the woman. “And you seem to know so much.”

“I don’t speak like a chimney sweep’s wife, is what you mean?” Sarah gave her a hint of a smile.

Jennie blushed. The assumptions she’d been making about people were all topsy-turvy now.

“No need to worry about offending me. My own dear mum worked as housekeeper in a titled master’s house, and I’d often go with her. That’s where I learned to keep my ears and eyes open. I paid attention while the children were being schooled.”

“Shut your yaps!” Scarface cracked his whip over their heads.

Jennie clamped her mouth shut and stared straight ahead. Out of the corner of her eye, she felt the eyes of Red Bull roaming over her body. She didn’t like to think about what he planned to do if she ever stepped out of line.

Terrified, she scanned the bedraggled women and the rough crewmen and warders. Everything was so foreign to her, and there was no one who could help her. She thought again of what Alice’s mother had said.
God never gives us more than we can handle
, but those words of wisdom didn’t comfort her any more than they had Alice. It was clear that Alice’s mum hadn’t been in such circumstances as the two of them were now.

She flashed back to her own mother’s earnest face, moments after the coppers showed up at their door to snatch Jennie away to jail.

“God go with you and give you strength to make your burden light. May He see fit to bring you back to us one day.” Her mother had hugged her fiercely, whispering into her ear. “Hold onto your faith, and know I’ll love you always, wherever you go.” Her mother had tried to press a locket into her hand, but one of the coppers stopped her.

As they rounded the stern, Jennie glanced up at the tall masts piercing the overcast sky. The sails billowed tautly in the wind. A huge wave of emptiness and longing washed over Jennie. She might never see her family again.

“We’ve no recourse now,” sighed Sarah, once they were a safe distance down the deck from most of the guards. “Look there.”

There was no sign of a coastline in any direction; only the never-ending, grey sea mirrored by the dreary mackerel sky. The desolate sounds of the wind, the water and the odd call of a seabird emphasized Jennie’s isolation.

“We mustn’t be far from shore if there are still birds,” she murmured. She watched several brown and black and white birds criss-crossing the wake in search of scraps.

“Far enough,” Hildy chortled in front of her. “It’s a long swim back.”

Jennie jerked her head around.

“Some birds will fly two days out,” Hildy continued.

“Stop your blathering,” a young guard blustered from the shadows of the wheelhouse.

When they drew even with him, Jennie was surprised to see it was Nate. He was younger than she’d originally thought. Up close, his face was smooth except for a few fine chin hairs. His hazel eyes solemn, he pretended not to notice Jennie, but finally looked away as she found herself unable to stop staring at him.

Jennie wondered why such a young man was a guard on a harsh convict ship. He looked like someone more suited for the land. She glanced over the sailors at their various stations. Several of them were young too. Straightening, she plodded on in silence, except for the clanking of her leg-irons.

All at once, a woman’s agonized scream rent the air.

Wide-eyed, Jennie strained to see around the others popping their heads out of line to look toward the stern.

Another high-pitched scream reached them.

Whispers scurried up and down the line. Whips cracked.

“Order!” bellowed the harsh voice of First Lieutenant Yates.

Jennie straightened in line with the other women.

“Eyes forward!” The harsh voice roared over yet another scream.

Jennie went rigid with fear as she neared the wheelhouse. A shrieking woman with her arms stretched above her head was manacled to the end wall. Red Bull flogged her, obviously finding pleasure with each stroke. The woman’s dress was in tatters to her waist and her body jerked with every lash of the whip. Her bony back bled, the flesh covered with welts and long, open slashes.

When Red Bull stopped momentarily, the woman’s screams subsided into agonized whimpers and cries for help. Stunned, Jennie could hardly take it all in. How had she not noticed the flogging frame before, or the punishment balls and torture irons strapped to the wheelhouse?

“Oh, no, not the black gag,” Hildy said.

Bile rose in Jennie’s throat as Red Bull stuffed the wooden bit of a leather bridle into the woman’s mouth. Buckling the straps around her head and neck, he snatched up the whip again. He lashed at her, grinning at his audience. The woman’s body bucked, though her legs were slack.

Ahead of Jennie, Alice howled and began sobbing.

“Shut the brat up!” Scarface yelled.

“Hush, hush, hush,” Kate begged from behind the girl.

“Look away, Alice,” Sarah called out.

The flogging continued for several more beats of the same drum to which Jennie and the other convicts marched around the deck. Jennie glanced over and away again, cringing with each crack of the whip. The leather thongs ripped at the woman’s back. Her body jerked, but otherwise she appeared lifeless.

At last Red Bull stopped. He removed the gag and the manacles. The woman slumped heavily to the deck floor. As two other warders plucked up the unconscious woman by her feet and arms, her head lolled to the side.

Lizzie.

The other doxy! All the air left Jennie’s chest. Why Lizzie? What had she done to cause such a flogging? Had they discovered her other felonies, her other name? But surely that couldn’t matter.

“Let that be a lesson to anyone else who disobeys orders or plans to mutiny!” Red Bull barked, as the two warders hauled Lizzie’s limp body down the open hatch.

Jennie gasped. Lizzie disobeying orders? Planning a mutiny? That made no sense. She’d had no time.

“Let’s be thankful they didn’t put her in the coffin bath.” Hildy indicated a long, low rectangular box.

“What’s it for?” Jennie murmured, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

“Soaking a lashed prisoner in sea water.” Hildy’s response was barely audible.

“With open wounds?” Jennie remembered how the sea water had stung her yes. “How horribly cruel,” she managed to sputter.

“Probably saving the coffin for later in our journey,” whispered Gladys.

“Aye, for now they’ve set a terrible enough example to keep us in line for a long while.” Sarah’s voice trembled.

Hot tears ran down Jennie’s face.

Alice sobbed anew, and Jennie was glad someone was there to console her, even if it was Kate.

“Hold your tongues!”

Jennie could barely breathe as they continued their rounds. She couldn’t shut away the image of Lizzie’s torn back.

When the ship’s bell rang to mark the end of the half hour of fresh air, Jennie didn’t know whether to be relieved or sick. Her thoughts flickered over the jolly and long boats tethered at the far end of the ship, but escape was out of the question –
especially now that she knew the consequences for a failed at
tempt. Besides, where would she escape to? She had no idea how far they were from any coastline. And if by some slim chance the opportunity ever did arise, she’d have to be incredibly certain of succeeding.

Meadows ordered them back down the hatchway, and Red Bull removed their leg irons once again. When Jennie reached him, he yanked the restraints off her ankles, scraping them on purpose. Jennie held back a cry of pain.

Sneering, he whispered in his heavy Yorkshire accent, “You’ll be next fer whippin’ if you don’t do ’xactly what I tells you to.” He peered down her cleavage.

She shrank away from him. He was a worse menace than Scarface.

Below deck, more of the condemned were suffering from seasickness. The guards thankfully left the prisoners free of their wrist manacles. But the brutal whipping had subdued everyone, including all the young children, as they trotted in silence back and forth from berths to buckets.

As Jennie passed the surgery, she glimpsed Lizzie lying, comatose, on a cot inside. There was no sound from her. Jennie stumbled to her berth, tears coursing down her cheeks. She wanted so desperately to go home! She was barely able to see as she climbed into her bunk.

If only that freak accident had not killed her father! His career as a chaise maker was safe compared to jobs in the mines or at the mills. Only the horrible chance of his being underneath the heavy front of a carriage at the exact moment it slipped off its blocks had robbed her family of a decent life. One second of terrible timing had crushed him and left them impoverished. Much later, another second of bad timing on Jennie’s part had brought her here. Why had she taken the oats just as Mrs. Burgess threw out the slops? It had left her family even more destitute, had left her suffering in these horrible conditions.

She sobbed harder.

“Shh, shh,” Sarah said from somewhere below her. “We’ll be all right.”

Alice called out in a frightened voice, “Jennie whatever can I do to help you? Please tell me.”

A sob of a different kind caught in Jennie’s throat. She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to gain control.

“Are you in pain? Shall I shout for the surgeon?” asked Alice.

After a few moments, Jennie answered Alice in a muffled voice, “I’m just frightened.”

“Would it help if I sang to you?” Alice asked. “That’s what my mum does when I’m afraid.”

Jennie’s eyes welled with tears again. How sweet of Alice to comfort her. It was almost like having one of her sisters nearby. Jennie let out another stifled sob. Alice and Sarah were all she had now. They were her new family.