Remember Me (11 page)

Tench was well aware of Mary’s arrangement with Graham, but he did not appear to despise her for it. He was an intelligent and adventurous man, who had already seen more of the world than anyone else Mary had known. He liked order and calm, but he was courageous too, loyal and dutiful to his King and Country. Mary doubted he would ever lie or take a bribe, yet he had compassion for those who did.

He loved books, and had told Mary that he kept a meticulous diary which he hoped might be published one day. Mary often wondered if he mentioned her in his writings, for she felt he was fond of her. He had said once that he wrote a great deal about his view of the penal system, because it would be of interest in the future to historians.

One day just before Christmas, Mary was called out for washing duties with Bessie. It was a bitterly cold day, and for once Mary would have been glad not to have been chosen. Bending over a tub of washing, up to her armpits in icy water and exposed to the elements, was not something
to be desired. Only the prospect of possibly seeing Tench made it bearable.

It was even worse than she feared. The wind from the sea cut through the poorly clad women like a knife. Bessie began to cry within minutes of putting her hands in the cold water, and however much Mary tried to take her mind off it, she couldn’t be cheered.

They didn’t wash the clothes as thoroughly as they had during the summer and by noon the job was completed, the whole deck festooned with wet shirts which would freeze on the lines.

As they made their way back to the hold, Tench appeared. ‘I want a word with Mary Broad,’ he said to the guard. ‘I’ll take her back myself in a few minutes.’

To Mary’s surprise and delight, he ushered her into his cabin on the deck and gave her a cup of tea to drink. She clasped the cup with her two hands to warm them.

‘Bless you,’ she said gratefully. ‘I’m so cold I thought I might die in a few more minutes.’

‘I didn’t just bring you in here to let you get warm,’ he said. ‘I have some news for you. Your transportation has been arranged.’

‘When and where to?’ she asked, hoping it was to be soon, to somewhere warmer than here.

‘We are bound for New South Wales,’ he said.

Mary could only stare at him for a moment. He had told her what he knew of this country on the other side of the world in a previous conversation. Captain Cook had reported on a place there he had named Botany Bay, which it was thought might be suitable for a penal colony.
But at the time Tench told her this, he considered New South Wales was unlikely to be the final destination of the convicts on the
Dunkirk
.

‘“We” are to go?’ she said. ‘You mean you too?’ She didn’t think she’d mind being sent to hell if Tench was to be there along with her.

He smiled. ‘Me too, they need Marines to keep you all in order. I am excited at the prospect. It’s a new country, one I very much want to see. England needs a presence in that part of the world, and if this country is all that has been reported, it could become an important place for us.’

Tench’s enthusiasm warmed Mary even more than the hot tea. As he went on to speak of the fleet of eleven ships being sent, of convicts building towns, of farming and being given free land when their sentences were up, she shared some of his excitement. She had always wanted to travel, a long voyage by sea didn’t daunt her, and if they were to be the first people to land at Botany Bay there could possibly be good opportunities for someone as quick-witted as herself.

‘Swear you won’t tell the other women,’ he warned her. ‘I’m only telling you because I hoped it might cheer you. I watched you earlier out there in the cold and my heart went out to you.’

He went on to tell her that Botany Bay had some native people with black skin, that the government believed there was flax and timber there, and the climate was good, far warmer than in England. He said Captain Cook had reported many strange animals and birds, including a
large furry beast that bounded along on its back legs, and a huge flightless bird. But though Mary was interested to know more about this new country so far away, it was Tench’s words, ‘my heart went out to you’, that resonated in her mind.

‘When will we sail?’ was all she could ask.

Tench sighed. ‘We have orders to take you to the ships on the 7th of January, but I suspect it will be some time before we set sail. Captain Phillip, who is commanding this operation, is not yet satisfied with the supplies of goods and food to be taken with us.’

‘Will I be on the same ship as you?’ Mary asked.

‘Would you like to be?’ he asked, his dark eyes looking hard at her.

‘I would,’ she said bluntly, seeing no point in being bashful.

‘I think I could arrange that,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Now, not a word to anyone, especially Lieutenant Graham.’

‘Is he going too?’ she asked.

Tench shook his head. ‘Does that sadden you?’

Mary smiled. ‘No, not at all. I don’t think he’s a man for an adventure.’

Tench chuckled, and Mary wondered if that meant Graham had in fact refused to go. ‘No, he’s not one for adventure, Mary. But you and I are, and perhaps we’ll see things we never dreamed of.’

Chapter four

The prisoners were not informed of the date of their transportation until the morning of 7 January, the day they were to be moved to the
Charlotte
.

Ever since Tench had told Mary when it would be, she’d been in a state of agitation, made far worse because she was unable to share it with anyone else. One moment she was hugging herself with glee that her days on the
Dunkirk
were numbered, the next she was terrified that the sea voyage and the land at the end of it would be even worse.

As the days slowly passed and she’d still heard nothing official, she began to think Tench might be mistaken. She couldn’t even ask Graham to verify it, for he would undoubtedly take Tench to task for telling her.

Lieutenant Graham was behaving very strangely though. More and more, he fluctuated wildly between tenderness and malice. This in itself seemed to confirm Mary really was leaving.

‘You are just a whore,’ he said with venom one night. ‘You might think you are different from the rest of the women in the hold, but you aren’t, just a damned whore like all the rest.’

Yet on another occasion as she was getting dressed to go back down to the hold, he fell down on his knees before her and clung to her with his face buried in her breast. ‘Oh, Mary,’ he gasped out. ‘I should have done more for you, not used you the way I have.’

On Christmas night he was very drunk and he told her he loved her. That night his love-making was gentle and very tender; he kissed the marks on her ankles made by the shackles and with tears in his eyes, begged her to forgive him for his moments of cruelty to her.

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she said. His previous insults hadn’t really hurt her, at least not if she stacked them up against the good things he’d done for her.

‘Then tell me you love me,’ he begged her. ‘Let me believe you came to me for something more than food and clean clothes.’

‘Of course I did,’ she lied, feeling sorry that he wasn’t able to accept their arrangement as she did. ‘But you aren’t free to love me, Spencer, so please don’t give me false hope by saying such things.’

She didn’t love him, she wasn’t sure that she even liked him, yet that night he had moved her, touched some inner part of her. As she made her way back to the hold the following morning, with another, newer grey dress, she wondered whether if they’d met under different circumstances it could have been different.

On the night of 6 January he called her out again, and she expected it was to tell her about the move the following day. But he said nothing about it, offered no endearments, further apologies or good wishes for her future.
He just took her roughly, and curtly ordered her back to the hold. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought he didn’t know what was coming for her.

It was barely light when the guards opened the door of the hold and read out the names of the women who were to go up on deck. Mary wasn’t surprised by the brusque order, but she was startled to hear just twenty names called, and some of those the old and infirm.

The reaction of the women called up on to the deck in a sleet storm was understandable. They were suspicious, puzzled and dismayed, clutching their ragged clothes about them and huddling together for warmth. Mary had to act just like them, for if anyone was to guess she knew where they were going, she’d be in trouble for not telling them. Yet as she stood there shivering on the deck, she was at least glad that Sarah and Bessie had been called, and Aggie, her old adversary, left behind.

Mary Haydon and Catherine Fryer were on the list as well, something Mary viewed with mixed feelings. They made a show of friendship now and then, but she sensed they would always be waiting for her downfall. Among forty women Mary had been able to keep her distance from them, but now the number was down to twenty it would be harder.

Thirty men were called out too, six of whom looked so sick and frail that they could barely be expected to stand, let alone survive a long voyage. But Mary was cheered to see Will Bryant and Jamie Cox among them, though disappointed that James Martin and Samuel Bird were not. Mary had grown to like all four men during her
chats with them through the grille: Will and James both made her laugh, and Jamie had become like a younger brother. His crime had been stealing some lace valued at only five shillings, and he worried about how his widowed mother was managing without him. He was so mild and gentle that she was very relieved he could stay under the mantle of big Will’s protection. She hoped James and Samuel would look out for each other when their other friends had gone.

The news that they were to be moved immediately to the
Charlotte
came from a man Mary had never seen before. He wore civilian clothes covered by a thick cloak, and a three-cornered hat trimmed with gold braid, and seemed ill at ease addressing felons. Perhaps his nervousness was because he expected his announcement would be met with anger. And it was: the majority of the prisoners let out a wail of outrage, for many had already served over half their original sentence and had husbands, wives or children they now feared they would never see again.

As always, protestations were ignored, and the guards moved menacingly closer. Only Mary dared to raise her voice with a question.

‘Sir, are we to receive clothes for this voyage? Some of our number have little more than rags to wear, and I fear they will die of cold before we reach warmer climates.’

The man lowered his spectacles and peered over them at her.

‘Your name?’ he asked.

‘Mary Broad, sir,’ she called back. ‘And some of the
women are already sick. Will there be a doctor to see them before we leave?’

‘Everyone will be checked,’ he said, but there was no certainty in his voice. He made no reply to the request for clothes.

It was dusk before all the prisoners from the
Dunkirk
were ferried out to the
Charlotte
in Plymouth Sound. Mary’s only thought as she saw the ship was surprise that it was so small, just a three-masted barque perhaps a hundred feet long. But it looked sturdy, and she was so perished with cold that she was incapable of taking anything else in.

The belief they were to set sail within a few days was soon dashed. It seemed the rest of the fleet wasn’t ready and there was a problem with the seamen’s wages. The conditions on the
Charlotte
were superior to the
Dunkirk
’s in as much as rations were larger, and the twenty women were not joined by any other prisoners, so they had more space. The men were not so lucky, for they had been joined by prisoners from elsewhere in England, making a total of eighty-eight. But as the
Charlotte
was anchored out in the Sound, and the hatches to the holds were closed because of bad weather, many of the women suffered from sea sickness immediately. Within days the conditions were almost as foul as those on the
Dunkirk
.

Week after week passed with no news of sailing. As they were still chained and kept in darkness for most of the day, with the ship wallowing in the waves, any optimism the women had felt at first was soon replaced by
despair. Many of them took to their bunks and sought refuge in sleep. Those who found themselves unable to do this squabbled among themselves.

There were times when Mary fervently wished she was still on the
Dunkirk
. She desperately missed her conversations with Tench and the male prisoners, and even her visits to Graham. Tench was on leave, and on the rare occasions the women were allowed up on deck, the few Marines and sailors on board ignored them.

The brief periods on deck were a torment to Mary. While it was wonderful to breathe clean, salty air, to be able to stand upright and walk, the sight of Cornwall on the horizon was almost too painful to bear. And it was worse still to be forced to return to the stinking hold, never knowing when she’d get out again.

She found herself recalling the most inconsequential things about her home and family as she lay shivering on her bunk. The way Dolly and she used to brush each other’s hair at night, laughing at how it crackled and sparked. Father chopping up wood for the fire, shouting through the window that he should have had boys so they could do it. Mother straining her eyes threading a needle by candlelight. She wouldn’t sew and mend by day when the light was good because she felt it was sinful to spend daylight hours doing something she enjoyed.

Mostly these memories were tender ones, but now and again Mary would be stricken by a bitter one too. Like the time her mother beat both her and Dolly because they’d gone into the sea naked.

On the day it happened Mary hadn’t understood why their mother was so angry. It seemed totally illogical to her. It was after all a very hot day, and surely if she and Dolly had spoiled their new clothes with salt water, that would have been much more serious.

Of course it wasn’t Dolly’s idea: she couldn’t swim, and a paddle was all she wanted. Mary made her do it.