The Disgrace of Kitty Grey (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

 

 

Will went down below and I stayed out of sight until the hatches were opened and the other girls began coming up the ladder. Martha appeared with the children and I kissed Betsy, then – on Martha saying she was desperate to know what had happened – put my finger to my lips and said I would tell her as soon as we found ourselves alone. Martha had become a good friend  and, though Will had urged restraint upon me, it would have been impossible not to tell her about this.

The other girls milled around us, finding spaces to sit or beginning their work on repairing lengths of canvas, scrubbing decks or gutting fish. There would be work for all once we'd set sail, we'd been told, but until then it was only those girls who had received longer sentences who worked. Their duties were always outside and their hands, with almost continuous exposure to cold and salt water, had become red-raw. This caused some of them to be resentful of the rest of us, which manifested itself in certain spiteful ways: tripping another girl on the deck ladder, giving the odd sly pinch, stealing food when a girl's back was turned. Martha and I had spoken about it and concluded that it would not take long for an almighty fight to break out.

That morning we waited, playing with baby Elizabeth (who, despite her surroundings, had recently begun to smile), until we found ourselves with space to speak more freely. The cows came on board during the time we were waiting, being swung over on giant hammocks from another ship, but I felt so anxious and overwrought that I hardly glanced their way. What were these cows to me, when I might soon be seeing my own?

‘You must promise not to say a word!' I began to Martha at last.

‘Of course I won't! Was it someone handsome who sent the notes?'

‘It was. But more than that . . .' I lowered my voice, ‘it was someone I knew from home: my sweetheart who had disappeared.'

‘The one who left you to come to London?' she said, her voice rising indignantly.

I nodded.

‘Then I'm very surprised that you would have anything to do with him. Why did he run off and leave you?'

‘He didn't leave voluntarily,' I said. ‘He was taken away. Pressed.'

‘Ah . . .' she breathed, obviously knowing what this meant. ‘Poor lad.'

‘He still intends that we should be together, Martha! He says he is going to make a plan for us to escape.'

‘Escape from this ship?' She shook her head. ‘Then I wish you a great deal of luck.' She nodded towards the gangplank, which was the ship's only point of exit and entry and guarded around the clock by two hefty sailors. ‘We sail tomorrow. How can an escape be managed in that short time?'

I shook my head. ‘I don't know.'

‘And what might happen to you if you're retaken?'

‘I don't know,' I said again. ‘I just have to trust him.'

She took my hand, looking at me sadly. ‘If you escape, I shall miss you very much,' she said.

‘I'm sorry that you can't come with us . . .'

She shook her head. ‘ 'Tis a kind thought, but I am quite resigned to going to Australia now. Besides, I have caught the eye of a midshipman.'

‘Already!'

‘Things move fast at sea,' she said, blushing.

Deciding I must do something to keep my mind occupied, Martha and I went to see the six newly arrived cows, and I was a little saddened to realise that one of the poor beasts must have had her calf taken away from her too early, for she was lowing piteously and looking towards the shore. The cows were Friesians, from the Low Countries, handsome in form and known for their good milk yield. They were resilient, too, and would have to be, for we were told by a sailor that, in high seas, they'd be tied up tightly and lashed to the masts. It would not do for one sixth of the ship's allowance of milk and beef to slip overboard.

 

That morning the last women had arrived from Exeter Gaol (a sorry bunch, ill dressed for cold weather and most forlorn) and the
Juanita
had taken delivery of some crates of lemons and limes that she'd been waiting for. I hardly knew what I did all that day; my mind was jumping all over the place with fear and possibilities. The lack of sleep meant that I felt strange and light-headed, but I was reluctant to close my eyes in case I missed Will coming by with a message.

I counted the hours as the ship's bell sounded, each hour bringing us a little closer to the time the ship would sail.

By mid-afternoon I was near despair, for no message had come from Will and I feared either that an officer had found out he was planning to escape, or that he'd been moved to another ship. Another hour went by and one of the little cabin boys came by and pressed a note in my hand asking me to go to the water butt on the starboard side without delay.

I told Martha where I was going and made my way there as quickly as I could, my heart racing. Finding Will still seemed much like a miracle, although we couldn't touch, or even look as if we were speaking to each other; he pretended to be cleaning the iron mugs which hung on chains around the water butt, while I stared out to the fields beyond the city, as if bidding a sad farewell to my country.

‘I couldn't contact you before, Kitty,' he said in a whisper. ‘I had duties to attend to down below.'

‘What are we going to do?' I asked with some urgency. ‘I've been thinking and thinking . . .'

‘As I have, for what I'd planned for myself will no longer work with three.'

A sailor passed by and checked some rigging, but didn't give either of us a glance.

‘But now I've devised another plan,' Will said. His eyes met mine. ‘How brave do you feel?'

‘Brave?' I asked, pulling my shawl over my head against a sudden gust of wind. ‘I don't feel brave at all.'

‘Then how much do you want to return home?'

I tried to speak, but a lump rose in my throat so that I just stared at him.

He nodded and touched my hand. ‘As much as I,' he said quietly. ‘Then this is what you have to do . . .'

Chapter Twenty-Six

 

 

On Wednesday at dusk I heard, from far above me on the deck of the
Juanita
, the voice of the chaplain: ‘
For as much as it has pleased Almighty God to take unto himself the souls of our sisters here departed . . .
'

I could not see anything, for I was in darkness, but knew that if I could, there would be a few girls – Martha amongst them – standing at the side of the ship, looking down at my canvas-wrapped body lying in the bottom of a rowing boat.

‘I must not move . . . I must not move . . .' I heard Betsy say in a whisper.

It was noisy, thank goodness: seawater plashing against the sides of the ship, shouts from other craft, the sound of a sea shanty being sung on a nearby boat.

‘No, you mustn't move,' I whispered in her ear, for she was lying close beside me inside my canvas shroud. ‘And you mustn't speak either. Not for a little while.'

‘I must not move and I must not speak,' came Betsy's muffled voice. ‘I must not . . .'

‘
. . . we therefore commit their bodies to the deep, in sure and certain hopes of the resurrection to eternal life .
. .
'

I felt something light land on top of me and knew what it was. ‘I will make sure that you have a flower on your coffin,' Martha had said to me, and she'd pulled a velvet rose from the front of the gown given to her by Mrs Fry. ‘Even if you are not really dead, you must have a flower.'

The chaplain intoned a final blessing and there was an answering ‘Amen' from Martha and the few girls standing on board the ship.

‘Thank you, Chaplain,' I heard Lieutenant Warwick call to him, and then, ‘If you please, sailor!' to Will, who was rowing us.

Will loosed the rope that was keeping him at the side of the ship and began to row away from it. Almost immediately, lying in the hull of the rowing boat and sewn into a canvas coffin bag, I began to feel sick from the rise and fall of the waves. I would have to tolerate it, however, because we didn't know for how long anyone might be watching us. We had to get as far away from the
Juanita
and the other Royal Navy vessels as we could.

 

I'd gone to see Lieutenant Warwick first thing that morning, and it had not been difficult to persuade him to help us, for it was not his belief that ordinary men should be pressed into service. When he heard first Will's story, then the circumstances which had caused Betsy and me to be on board, he said he felt we had been treated unjustly and it was his duty, not as an officer but as a gentleman, to aid us. In turn I assured him most sincerely that I would inform Lord and Lady Baysmith of his noble behaviour towards us, and do everything in my power to advance his suit with Miss Sophia.

‘I am certain that she still loves you, sir,' I said. ‘In my experience of young ladies, the more their parents oppose their wishes, the more they cling to them.'

‘And she refused to be introduced to the gentleman in Bath, you said?'

‘She did, sir!' I replied.

He thought for a moment. ‘We are stopping in Madeira; perhaps you could beg Sophia to contact me care of the Royal Navy office there. I can send her a list of the stops the ship is making and we can write to one another at each one.'

‘Of course, sir,' I said fervently. ‘I will tell her everything that happened, and assure her of your complete devotion.'

‘I'll try to get passage on a fast ship back from Australia. It'll be eighteen months, Kitty – please make Sophia aware of this.'

‘Indeed I will, sir.' I took a deep breath. ‘But about Will, and me, and Betsy . . .'

‘Yes!' He seemed to pull himself from his reverie. ‘Sadly, Annie Lease, one of the two girls who were ill, has died, so I have already ordered a sea burial this afternoon. The Plymouth authorities won't think of taking the body ashore; they're too frightened that gaol fever will come in with the corpse.'

‘But won't they . . .' I hesitated, for it sounded so callous, ‘. . . want to wait in case the other girl dies so they can bury them together?'

‘What – set sail on a long voyage with a dead body on board?' He shook his head. ‘Never! Sailors are a superstitious bunch.' He was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘No, you will be in the other canvas shroud, playing dead. And it will be me who sews you in, so you can rest easy that I won't do the final stitch.'

I looked at him curiously.

‘In a shipboard burial,' he explained, ‘when the body is stitched into its canvas wrap it's usual to put the last stitch through the corpse's nose to make sure it's dead.'

I shuddered.

‘And Will, of course, will be our boatman,' he continued.

‘But what of Betsy?'

‘She can be in your canvas with you.' He frowned slightly. ‘Though you'll have the awkward responsibility of explaining to her what you're doing.'

‘I'll try and think of something,' I said, my mind skittering all over the place.