Not the Same Sky (12 page)

‘Rose Larkin is dying, Rose Larkin’s dying,’ she wept.

Honora and Anne rushed over. They were older and knew what was happening. This was not the first time this scene had occurred on the journey, but it was the first time that it had happened at night. It was surprising that the younger girls had not become aware, but it was also surprisingly possible to hold on to certain privacies, even in their cramped conditions.

‘Shssh, she’s not dying. She’s not dying.’

‘She is, she is, she’s bleeding to death. Look at her blanket. Rose Larkin’s dying.’

Rose Larkin waited to hear what Honora Raftery and Anne Sherry would say. Then she would know if she was dying or not.

Cissy Weir shouted, before Honora could get her explanation properly ordered, ‘That’s just a thing girls get.’

‘What thing.’

‘There’re rags for it.’

‘What thing?’

Rose Larkin had stopped sniffing now, she was glad she was not dying. Her first helper was silent, glad that there were other girls who did not know what was going on. She hid behind their questions. But what thing could it be?

‘It’s a thing some girls get. What’s it called?’

‘It’s a thing all girls get.’

‘All girls! Don’t be silly.’

‘But what is it?’

Then Matron arrived, to Honora’s relief. Someone must have run for her. Matron told the girls to go back to sleep and went and sat on the side of Rose’s bed and whispered an explanation to her. She did not want the younger ones to know before they needed to. Yet as she sat there she wondered if maybe it would not be best coming from her before they went to their new lives, because there was no guarantee they would be told with even a modicum of kindness. Luck would decide that—who hired them or who didn’t.

Charles continued to write in his diary. He wrote about recaulking and winds and speeds and how to keep decks dry and private words about the captain. He grumbled on the pages that he had had to replace some of the upper boards on the fore lattice work to prevent some of the girls from talking too much with the sailors. He didn’t mind a small amount of talking when it was necessary and fruitful even. They would have to mix with men very soon, unprotected by a father or a brother or a mother. Though not too much talking yet, not on his watch. But his annoyances were short-lived. He noted that Bridget Joyce was beside herself with joy when an albatross landed on the deck. There were hot days, wet days, light winds, cloudy sultry days, bad travelling days and days when great progress was made. Gradually the time of their sailing was shedding itself.

As the time rounded into the last week, little disturbances manifested themselves. But Charles knew these were not an actual return to original behaviours, but more a result of fear and nervousness. All in all, his girls were much better behaved than when first boarding. They had acquired many good habits and some had even mastered literacy beyond his wildest hopes. He counted the achievements, while still preparing for the impatience and apprehension that seeing land would bring. And as it began to come into his sights he blessed them, truly his girls now.

‘Land ho! Land ho!’ a sailor shouted.

‘You can see it, you can see it. In the distance you can see it,’ a second voice, that of a girl, was heard shouting at five in the morning. And a huge rush came out of beds.

‘Wake up, Honora, you can see it.’

And sure enough, up on deck, you could see the faintest glimpse of lights twinkling as the dawn gathered itself together. They were afraid to be sure. As the sun rose, definite traces of earth could be seen, a line that had to be land. Full dawn came and lit up the entire world. No one wanted to have breakfast in case by turning away to go inside the land too would turn its back. But Charles insisted. And as they trooped in they looked different somehow, there was expectation on their faces.

These were the last days at sea and they had a bewildering busyness about them—seeing places in the distance that Charles or the matrons named for them and paying special attention to their washing and trying to contain themselves.

‘I can smell things from the land,’ a girl said. And sure enough others smelt them then too.

Unfortunately they would have to go around Van Diemen’s Land, the wind not favouring them. When they saw the south-east tip of it, he took the time to spread the map out again.

‘Van Diemen’s Land, my uncle’s there,’ Julia Cuffe said.

The other girls looked at her with new curiosity. Charles momentarily thought of the history of some of his charges. But that was before and there was too much else to be done now. They sighted the Mewstone. They passed between the Eddystone and land. Charles pinned the map up again. Julia Cuffe was not to be seen when he was doing this and then he heard a shout. He ran on deck. She was standing below a sail shouting at the land.

‘Can you see me, can you see me?’ she bellowed.

Charles went to her, uncertain how to approach this outburst.

She turned to him, laughing hysterically and now screaming, ‘You’ll not make a good girl out of me.’

He did manage to calm her but decided that punishment might make the issue worse. He put the map away—it had a habit of causing trouble. Then there was the Pillar Rock.

‘Van Diemen’s Land, I know that one,’ said one latecomer to the news.

Charles relented and put the map back up.

‘There’s not many names there,’ Anne Sherry said, pointing to a long stretch.

The wind had now become baffling, leading to incipient frustration. The waters went calm. The girls watched the sea. They peered out, hands shading their eyes to see more land. Once seen it was a severe disappointment if a mist or a change of direction took it away from them. Charles would have to arrange a new way of keeping order because the excitement had lent a certain carelessness to the washing and keeping clean of the decks. He did not want the cleanliness, so hard achieved, to fall at the last hurdle. A foul gale then blew up and the girls were sent back down. That night those who could not sleep heard the crew worrying about the martingale stay chain, which had broken and was endangering the flying jib boom, the boom and the foretop mast. They were trying to forget these words.

‘You can see The Heads. Mr Strutt said you can see The Heads,’ Honora told them the following morning, unsure of what she was speaking about, yet wanting to believe that The Heads might be a good sign.

The ship moved on. It rounded into the choppy water. They could see yellow sand and trees, so many trees. Some had green tops, some white. This getting closer was watched quietly. The birds, dressed in the most spectacular colours, began to arrive. Bridget Joyce grew flushed with awe. Matron called the girls to assemble to present their quilt to Mr Strutt. Everyone was very proud.

Now there was the final cleaning and washing, the taking up of trunks, the airing and viewing of clothes. The water shimmered, not like sea at all. You could imagine touching land.

‘We’re in,’ came a short shout. And then the most bewildering thing of all happened, on Sunday 3 February 1850, the ship came to anchor near Garden Island, just as dusk was settling.

‘You can take your cutlery, plate and linen bags with you.’

‘Can we? Really?’

‘Yes, I think you can say they’re yours now.’

‘Thanks.’

They tidied them away, the first of personal property, other than clothes, ever to come to them.

There were sounds of people boarding, and the girls went quiet. The inspectors began to check the state of the ship and were truly astonished. They eyed the girls. The girls eyed them back. The inspectors set up a table where complaints could be taken. They knew this could take some days to accommodate. No one came to the table. The doctor came and declared that all was well with the girls and whispered under his breath it was a pity he couldn’t have said that about the other ships.

Charles Strutt said, pleasure all over him, ‘They are fatter now.’

CHAPTER 15

With much noise and shouting, Charles Strutt’s girls came off the
Thomas Arbuthnot
into small boats. As they rowed away, some of them looked back at their big boat before gradually turning their eyes towards land.

‘I didn’t know that a ship could go through water like that.’

Others turned to look at the girl who had said this. She blushed.

‘I mean before,’ she said, ‘but I do now,’ and she too turned to look at the approaching land.

‘If we survived that we’ll survive anything,’ another said.

‘We’re young,’ Honora said, like an old person.

When they reached the quay a man checked them off a list just as when they had boarded so long ago. But this time the unsteadiness in their feet was caused by solid ground—how it came up to meet the soles of their feet, which were now used to the movement of water. They looked at where their shoes landed. They were wiser too. They had lived an unlikely ninety-nine days and nights. And they were fatter.

‘Or at least not thinner,’ Honora said to herself, running her fingers down her ribcage.

The going through the door of the boat had been different in another way—Charles knew them, knew their names. He did perhaps call out Bridget too often.

Honora, Anne and Bridget stayed close together. Julia meandered off for moments but kept them in her sights.

‘Well there we go now, Australia,’ she said to herself.

The new noises were overwhelming—shouting and scraping as the trunks were hauled out. Honora remembered Plymouth, but only for a brief few seconds. Charles called for the girls to stay together and near him. There was no need. They had no intention of wandering far from him.

After further discussions with the captain, Charles lined the girls up, three in a row. He arranged for the sub matrons to be sprinkled among them and started the walk towards Hyde Park Barracks, he himself leading the way. A sort of chatter grew, ebbed and flowed in semi-tones, and sometimes went quiet to allow a loud bird to squawk in answer.

‘What’s that?’ Anne Sherry squealed, pointing behind a bush.

‘What’s what?’

‘It’s gone,’ she said, deciding not to trust her description of what she thought she had seen.

‘It was like an animal with a baby’s face. I think. But it had fur over its eyes. I think …’

‘No it wasn’t, couldn’t have been. Don’t be silly.’

Maybe she had just imagined it.

‘What’s
that
?’ a girl screamed.

Bridget trained her eyes towards the sky and the tops of the trees, and what she saw there took her breath away.

The girls coiled up the street, their hats bobbing and flashing colour. When they came to the gate of the barracks, Charles lined them up in a straight row. Some stared in wonderment, some in fear, at the imposing building. Little spurts of fright were kept under control. This is where their feet would tread the same footsteps as Caroline Chisholm, of whom they still knew nothing. Charles led them to the dormitory where iron beds had now replaced the convict furnishings, although a few hammocks still swung from the rafters.

‘What’s that?’ Anne Sherry whispered.

‘I don’t know,’ Honora said, suddenly tired and overwhelmed by all she didn’t know.

The room was big, so big, the girls having now become used to bending their bodies to fit the boat. Their voices bounced off the walls. The echoes came back to them. Charles waited until all of them had been assigned a bed before he explained that he would now be leaving them in the care of the authorities.

‘But you’re not leaving us for good?’ a girl asked.

‘No. I’ll be back tomorrow,’ Charles replied.

That would have to do for now. He would have to tell them gradually that he would not be here with them, that he would only oversee their relocation into their new lives.

‘He’ll be going back,’ Julia said.

‘Shh …’ Honora said.

The authorities—men and women the girls did not know—ushered in people of the Catholic cloth, among them a priest to remind the girls of their fast obligations now that they were not at sea and to hear their confessions. But what could these girls have to confess?

Charles walked out the gate and set off to visit people he knew—officials, dignitaries, and an old emigrant from his previous ship whose address he had. He did not look back, best not to. He needed a plan for these few days. Sudden idleness would contrast too much with the last three months, and anyway, he was used to plans by now. He gazed at the animals around—they seemed to be performing for him. He would have liked to touch some of the smaller ones, but thought it safer not to. Charles enjoyed the walk, loved having his feet on the ground. He tried not to think about the girls. They were in safe hands now. At least until the hiring began.

Back at the barracks the girls made new arrangements among themselves, mindful of the order required for the smooth running of large numbers. Those among them who needed it were worried about the lack of a safe place to dispose of their menstrual rags, and so hid them under the floorboards as best they could, where they would live with the rodents for many years, undiscovered until renovations were undertaken one hundred years from now. Living in rooms, on land, had to have its own rules too, and they used what they had learned on the ship to calm the beating of their hearts. And they tried to sleep.