Emily (32 page)

‘Five more,’ Boyle ordered. ‘Is he a woman that he can’t take more?’ Again he ordered a bucket of sea water to be thrown over Johnson’s back and they saw him flinch, though he made not a sound. ‘Continue.’

The bosun hesitated, but had been given his orders; to disobey was an offence. He took a step backwards and launched the whistling cat for the final five, which opened up the wounds into a bloody, sticky mass.

‘Put him below and iron him,’ Boyle began, when there was a movement from the companionway and Captain Martin appeared. His face was sallow and his eyes heavy, but he greeted Lieutenant Boyle and the other officers and asked, ‘Have I missed the ceremony? Has Neptune departed?’ then, glancing around the deck, said sharply, ‘What’s this? A flogging? On my ship!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Boyle. ‘One of the convicts. He became abusive after taking part in the ceremony.’

‘Indeed? Bring him to me,’ the captain ordered and Johnson was pushed towards him. ‘Do you not agree with tradition?’ he asked him. ‘Crossing the Line is an age-old ceremony.’

‘Not when it means half-drowning a man, sir. But that isn’t why ’officer had me lashed. He had me lashed because I objected to him giving ’same treatment to one of the women.’

‘I was attacked by the prisoner, sir,’ Boyle
began, but was interrupted by the captain.

‘Mr Linton, take the prisoner and dress his wounds, then put him in the cramping box to reflect on his misdoings. You must realize’, he addressed Johnson, ‘that you can’t take the law into your own hands. That is why you are here on this ship and not enjoying the comforts of your hearth and family.’

Johnson opened his mouth to reply, but was marched away with Philip following and anxiously looking over his shoulder at Emily, who was still being held by the seamen.

The captain conferred quietly with Boyle and Clavell to ascertain what had happened and to ensure that Boyle didn’t lose face before the prisoners. ‘I’ll see you in my cabin, Mr Boyle,’ he said, ‘and in the meantime, put the woman below and keep her fettered for the rest of the day. As for the other woman,’ he looked towards Emily, ‘put her in the cramping box for a couple of hours, she’ll not cause any trouble after being in there.’

Clavell started to object that the heat would be too much, it was so hot that the deck planking was scorching.

‘An hour, then,’ the captain conceded. ‘That should teach her not to interfere.’

Two cramping boxes for the punishment of the prisoners stood side by side on the upper deck and an immense heat almost knocked Emily over as the door was opened and she was pushed inside. There was no room to sit or crouch but only to stand and after ten minutes she felt as if she was being
baked alive. ‘I need water,’ she called. ‘Please! Fetch me some water!’

‘You can’t have water,’ a voice shouted back, ‘but if you’re not quiet you’ll get a bucket of sea water over you.’

She hammered on the door. ‘I’ll die,’ she shrieked. ‘I must have water.’

‘Give her water, then,’ she heard a voice say and a moment later a hatch in the roof opened and a bucket of sea water was thrown in, drenching her through and making her gasp and although for a moment she was refreshed by its coldness, the salt dried instantly on her skin and her clothes, making her itch and scratch. She heard voices again and braced herself for another bucket of water to be thrown in, but it was the guards bringing Johnson into the other cramping box.

She peered through the slats. ‘Are you all right?’ she whispered. ‘Is your back very painful?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘More than it would have been if that bastard Boyle hadn’t thrown sea watter at me.’

‘You were very brave,’ she said softly. ‘I would have hated to have been thrown into ’sea.’

‘I was terrified,’ he admitted. ‘I’m not used to watter. I’m a countryman, used to ’earth beneath my feet.’

She listened. Meg was right. He did sound like a northern man. ‘Where are you from?’ She kept her voice down so that the guards didn’t hear.

There was a hesitation and she peered again through the slats and saw a pair of eyes looking back at her. ‘’North of England.’ He was brief. ‘Nowhere tha would know.’

‘I might,’ she said. ‘I’m from ’north too. Did you come from York county gaol?’

Again there was a hesitation. ‘No. I’ve travelled a bit. I got caught pinching stuff in London.’

‘Oh!’ There seemed nothing more to say and it was too hot for the effort of conversation.

‘Is tha feeling all right?’ he asked after a long silence.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I feel ill. My legs are giving way and I’m so thirsty.’

‘Not so long to go now,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a bit of a breeze now that we’re under way again. Bear up if tha can.’

A tear trickled down her cheek and into her mouth; she licked her lips and tasted the salt. The sound of his northern accent brought back so many memories. Of her father and mother, her brother Joe and of Sam, who had been like a brother to her.

‘Is tha from York, then? Is tha a Yorkshire lass?’

‘Yes,’ she wept as she answered, ‘I am. But I’m not from York, I’d never been there before until I was sent from Hull to go to ’county court.’

‘Tha’s from Hull?’ There was a note of surprise in his voice. ‘I know it!’

‘Do you?’ She stopped her crying. ‘No, I’m not from Hull. I worked there, as a servant,’ she added. ‘I’m from a place called Holderness. You wouldn’t know it, even folk in Hull don’t know where it is. It’s very isolated, there are great tracts of marshy land and hummocky plain which stretch right towards ’sea. I used to live near ’River Humber,’ she said huskily, finding it difficult to speak because of her dry throat. ‘I used to watch the big ships go
downriver towards Spurn and wished I could go on one. I never dreamt that one day I would and sail to the other side of ’world.’

‘I know it,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I know Holderness! That’s where I’m from – but no-one here knows it, I never telled ’em.’

‘Oh!’ she breathed, amazed to think that out here in the middle of the ocean could be an alliance with home.

‘What’s thy name?’ he asked. ‘Or did tha change it like I did?’

‘Emily,’ she said and felt shame that she had sullied her family name by her misdeeds. ‘Emily Hawkins.’

There was silence from his box and she could hear the sound of running feet out on deck, the hails and cries of the helmsman and the boys up on the yards. ‘White squall approaching, sir,’ and heard also the order to get the prisoners below. The great ship plunged and quivered, the sails and masts creaked and groaned as the
Flying Swan
and her seamen battled with the sudden storm and Emily would have fallen if she hadn’t been so confined within the box.

‘Emily!’ Johnson called huskily.

‘Yes?’ she answered. ‘What?’

‘No, I mean – that’s thy name? Emily Hawkins?’

‘Yes.’ She was too exhausted to speak. The heat was blistering and she felt as if she was being battered to pieces as the ship dipped and plunged between mountainous troughs. Was the hour almost up? Was the ship going to sink? She could
see through the slats that the deck was awash with water.

‘Em!’ His voice sounded strained and tearful. ‘Not little Em? Not our Emily who went to live wi’ Granny Edwards?’

She didn’t answer, but put her face close to the slats to see him staring back at her. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘That’s me!’

‘Then doesn’t tha know me, Em? Doesn’t tha know thine own brother Joe?’

It appeared as if they had been forgotten in the cramping box and so brother and sister rediscovered each other as they were buffeted from side to side and the sea water washed over their feet. Emily told of how she had come to be convicted and Joe raged as she revealed her ordeal at the hands of Hugo Purnell. ‘I swear on the soul of our ma, if I ever could lay my hands on him I’d kill him, Em.’

He spoke of when he and their mother went to the workhouse after their father died. ‘All she could think of was that you were safe, Em. She allus said that Granny Edwards would look after thee. She said she had a way wi’ bairns.’

And he confessed to her about the time when their mother had died, which was the start of his thieving. ‘She was tekken to a paupers’ graveyard and they let me go wi’ ’coffin. I marked where it was and when I eventually left ’workhouse – I was about eleven, I think – I stole some flowers from a garden to put on her grave. Onny I got caught and was put in gaol for a month. After that it was a downward spiral and I had to steal to eat and I decided to go
to Hull, ’cos I’d heard that ’vagrant office sometimes gave out money. Onny they wouldn’t give it to me ’cos I wasn’t from ’district. I was starving, Emily,’ he said. ‘I sometimes didn’t eat for days unless I could pinch summat from bakers’ bins.’

Emily thought of the masses of food which had been thrown away at the Purnell house and grieved for her brother. ‘If only you’d come to find me at Granny Edwards’s,’ she said. ‘She would have taken you in. She wouldn’t have turned you away.’

‘I decided to travel and look for work,’ he shouted to her above the crashing of the storm and the shriek of the wind through the rigging. ‘I’m strong, though I might not look it, but I got with a gang and was led into thieving. I was caught several times and went to gaol. I’d changed my name by then ’cos I had a bad record and I allus thought how Ma and Da would have been ashamed of me. They were allus so honest.’ He paused. ‘And, as well, I didn’t want you to hear of what I’d done, of the life I was leading.’

She heard his voice lift as if with a smile. ‘I allus imagined you being in service somewhere, a lady’s maid or summat and I wouldn’t have wanted you to hear of your brother being in gaol! We had good memories, Em, I wouldn’t have wanted them spoiling.’

‘We had,’ she answered. ‘Do you remember when we went to catch tiddlers in Lambwath Beck and you got a hiding from Da when we got home because I was covered in mud?’ She felt tears gathering as she remembered. ‘I often thought about you, Joe. I passed Skirlaw workhouse once
and wondered what had happened to you and Ma.’

She heard a voice calling that the wind was dropping. ‘And now here we both are, sailing to ’other side of ’world. But I’m glad, Joe, that I’ve found you. I won’t feel so far from home if I know that you are near.’

‘We shan’t be able to stop together,’ he said. ‘I’ll be put in a road gang I expect, and you,’ he hesitated, ‘well, I hear all sorts of things that happen to women. Worst ones get sent to Parramatta and others, well, they say that some of ’em are sent as housekeepers to settlers or soldiers. Onny – onny, they’re not really housekeepers, they’re sort of – wives!’

‘You don’t have to conceal what happens, Joe,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard so many stories. I’m not an innocent girl any more. I know that women are used as whores and I know that they don’t go home again, not like the men can.’

‘I don’t want to,’ he said sharply. ‘I’ll never go back. England doesn’t want me and I don’t want England. When my time is up – and I’ve onny three years to go, I’ve spent four already doing hard labour, I’ll hire myself out. I’ve heard that new settlers want hard-working men and I’ll save up to buy a bit o’ land. I’ll graze a few sheep and grow some corn and I’ll become my own man, Emily. I’ll not be behodden to anybody ever again. And you can come and live wi’ me when your time is finished. We need never be parted again.’

The doors were unbolted and they fell out onto the deck. They faced each other and Emily looked into the eyes of her brother. When she looked at
his face through the beard and matted hair, she saw that he was the same Joe that she remembered. They each put out a hand and smiled and touched fingers before being parted by the guards and Joe was led away below decks. Emily sat on the wet deck with her head bowed and wept, her shoulders heaving with sobs until a shadow fell across her. She wiped her eyes and looked up. It was Philip Linton standing there and he bent down to help her up.

‘You’d better come to the sick bay,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t cry, there’s no need to be frightened. It’s all over now. It was just a sudden squall.’

She dared not tell Philip Linton that she was crying because of her meeting with her brother. Joe had been convicted under another name and she felt she must respect his decision about changing it. She gratefully accepted the water which Mr Linton gave her and he urged her to drink it a sip at a time.

A woman was in labour in the sick berth. She was pacing up and down and it brought back more memories for Emily of her own lonely labour. ‘Will someone stay with her?’ she urged. ‘Don’t let her stay alone.’

‘A woman is coming up to be with her, and Clavell will be here. He’ll look after her.’ He bent towards her to whisper, ‘Come to my cabin, you can rest there.’

She shook her head. ‘I must go below to see Meg. She’s been shut up too and fettered.’

‘Then come later,’ he persuaded. ‘It’s cooler on the main deck.’

She said that she would and made her way below
into the putrid heat of the ’tween decks. The other women were coming back up on deck, but Meg was lying on a bottom bunk, fettered by the ankle to a ring on the bulkhead. She lay quite still and perspiration ran down her face. Her clothes were sodden with sweat. She turned to Emily as she bent over her. ‘You all right, Em? Was it very bad in ’box?’

Emily nodded. ‘Bad enough. I was desperate for water, but they wouldn’t give me any. Only a bucket of sea water, and then my feet got wet from the storm.’ She passed Meg a drink of lukewarm water from an uncovered jug.

‘It’s putrid.’ Meg spat it out. ‘I’d rather die of thirst! Isn’t there any clean?’

‘No, but I know where I can get some. I’ll go back to Mr Linton’s cabin, he asked me to.’

Meg turned her head away. ‘Huh,’ she griped.

‘It’s a bad business when women have to sell their bodies for a sip o’ water.’

‘Sell their bodies! What do you mean?’

‘What I say!’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I offered myself to him to save you, and he still got what he wanted in ’end, in spite of his fine words and promises!’

‘I don’t understand.’ Emily was bewildered. ‘Offered yourself who to? You mean Mr Linton?’

‘Aye, ’first time he sent for you,’ Meg said wearily. ‘You were asleep and I went up in your place. I told him that you were still an innocent and would I do instead. He promised me,
promised
me that that wasn’t what he wanted. But I should have known! Should have known that all men are ’same. They’re
all snakes, you can’t trust anyone of ’em.’