Remember Me (20 page)

‘Go home now,’ he said. ‘He will be tried tomorrow. Tonight he stays in the guard-house.’

Mary moved towards the door, but turned before leaving and gave Phillip a penetrating stare. He saw deep fear and desperation in her eyes as she held the child out to him.

‘Please, sir,’ she pleaded. ‘Look at my child. She is bonny and healthy now, but without Will she may not stay that way. I’ll make sure Will never goes wrong again. Please, for the love of God and this child, spare him!’

She left then, slinking off into the night like a cat.

Phillip sat for a while deep in thought. The woman was right. Hanging Bryant would bring the spectre of starvation even closer.

‘Damn those fools in England,’ he muttered. ‘Where are the provisions asked for? How can I be expected to make this colony self-sufficient when I haven’t been given even the most basic equipment or men with the right skills?’

He had deep anxieties about almost every facet of this experiment: the infertile soil, the fast-dwindling stores, the behaviour of the felons, and the natives. It was predictable that the felons wouldn’t pitch in and help themselves. They were townsfolk in the main, and they were more familiar with a jug of ale than a plough. They had no morals – dozens of the women had given birth or were expecting a child, and they moved from one partner to another without a qualm. They’d rather stand about chatting than work, would rather steal vegetables than grow them. Phillip could understand them, they had
after all been sent here for good reason. But he was very disappointed in the natives.

Phillip had believed that if they were treated with kindness and friendliness, they would reciprocate. Sadly, this didn’t seem to be the case – over the last few months several convicts working away from the camp had been brutally murdered. He still wanted to find a way to communicate with these people, to discover where the big rivers and fertile land lay, to learn about the native animals and birds, but all his efforts had come to nothing.

In truth, by the first anniversary of the colony, Phillip was a very worried man. He had the settlement at Sydney Cove, the one in Norfolk Island, and now Rose Hill too, but the convicts showed little inclination to reform, the Marines grumbled constantly, and the situation with the natives appeared to be getting worse rather than better. Without more food and medicine, the death toll would rise even more steeply. He found it hard to sleep at night for anxiety, and he couldn’t see an end to it.

Mary bit into her knuckles as Judge Collins stood up in the guard-house to tell Will what his punishment was to be. As she had expected, someone had informed on Will, and she guessed it to be Joseph Pagett, a man who had been on both the
Dunkirk
and the
Charlotte
. He had shown signs of jealousy during the voyage, and she could recall him giving Will a baleful look the day they were married.

Charles White, the surgeon from the
Charlotte
, had spoken up for Will, but even so Mary was sure he was to
be hanged. She knew Will thought so too, for his face was drained of all colour, and he was biting his lip and trying very hard not to tremble.

‘I sentence you to a hundred lashes,’ Collins said. ‘And to be deprived of the direction of fishing and the boat. Also to be turned out of the hut you are now in, along with your wife and family.’

Will shot a glance at Mary, his face registering some relief, but anxiety at how she would take the loss of the hut.

Mary couldn’t think about that now. While she was relieved Will wasn’t to be hanged, and 100 lashes was a light punishment compared to some she’d witnessed, any flogging was still terrible, and she felt her stomach heave with nausea.

‘Take him away for punishment,’ Collins said.

All the prisoners were rounded up to watch Will’s flogging, even the children. They took their places in a semicircle before the big wooden triangle, which was manned on either side by a Marine drummer. In front of the triangle stood the Marine who was to administer the flogging. He had stripped down to his shirt and was already wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, for it was yet another very hot day. In his other hand he held the cat-o’-nine-tails, each strand tarred and knotted.

The Marines began to drum, and Will was brought into the circle. His guards removed his shirt, then tied his hands to the upper parts of the triangle. There wasn’t a
sound for a moment, not a whisper from a concerned friend, nor a cry from a child. Everyone was entirely focused on the hideousness of what they were to witness.

Will’s punishment was announced again, and one of the Marines who had brought him out of the guard-house gave the signal count of one.

Mary had witnessed some thirty or more floggings, of women as well as men, and it had always appalled her, even when she thought the victim deserved punishment. Some were given 1,000 lashes, 500 one day, the rest saved for when their backs healed up. Some people died before they got even half-way, and those who survived would bear the scars for the rest of their lives. Mary felt sick even before the Marine lifted his arm for the first lash. She had caressed that broad brown back, knew every knob in Will’s spine as intimately as she knew her own hands.

Will didn’t flinch at the first lash, he even tried to smile at Mary as if to prove it didn’t hurt. But just that one stroke had left a red weal, and his smile, however brave, didn’t fool her.

The counting was slow, half a minute between each lash, and by the eighth blood was drawn. Will couldn’t smile any longer, his body jerked with each lash and he was biting his lips as he tried not to cry out.

On and on it went, flies homing in on the fresh blood which spurted out all over his back like water through a sieve. By the twenty-fifth lash, Will was clinging to the triangle, his handsome face contorted with agony. Mary held Charlotte’s face close to her chest, and shut her eyes
each time the drum was beaten. But she could still hear the whip whistling through the still air, and the sound of the Marine’s boots on the ground as he spun round to give each stroke more impact. She could also smell Will’s blood and hear the buzzing of the flies gorging on it.

It took over an hour in all, many of the crowd almost passing out from standing beneath the hot sun. By fifty lashes Will was insensible, the sinews on his back showing white through the lacerated skin. He hung by the ropes around his wrists, his legs sagging like a drunk’s.

Mary was crying now, hating the system which ordered such brutal punishment and despising those Marines who had often talked and joked with Will and were now his torturers.

The drum and the count finally stopped. Will was released from the triangle and he slid down it to the floor. His breeches and boots were soaked with blood, and ants were already carrying off small pieces of his flesh on their backs.

Mary ran to him, imploring someone to get cloths and salt water to bathe his back. Will was unconscious, his face still contorted with pain, and she crouched down beside him, Charlotte still in her arms.

‘Let me take Charlotte?’ a familiar voice asked.

Mary looked up and was surprised to see it was Sarah with a bucket of water and cloths. She had streaks from tears down her dirty face and it seemed that Will’s suffering and Mary’s distress had reminded her of their old friendship.

‘Bless you, Sarah,’ Mary said gratefully as she handed
her child over. She washed Will’s face first, then looked up at Sarah again. ‘I ought to get him out of the sun but I haven’t got anywhere to take him now that they’ve confiscated our hut.’

‘We’ll take him to mine,’ Sarah said, leaning down and patting Mary’s shoulder. ‘Hold on, I’ll get some men to help.’

As Sarah walked away with Charlotte in her arms, Mary leaned over and put her lips close to her husband’s ear. ‘Can you hear me, Will?’ she whispered.

He didn’t reply, but his eyelids flickered. ‘I swear to you we’ll escape from here,’ she whispered, hate for Captain Phillip and everyone else responsible welling up inside her. ‘We’ll find a way, you’ll see. I’ll never let this happen again.’

It was later that day, as Mary crouched by Will’s side in the small hut, gently bathing his back, that she considered her old vow to escape. She hadn’t thought of it once since her arrival, and now it seemed incredible to her that she had begun to accept this terrible place, even to like it. But she couldn’t bear it any longer. Somehow she was going to get Will and Charlotte and herself away from here and do so as fast as was humanly possible.

Chapter seven

‘Move over, Mary,’ Sarah hissed in the dark. ‘You aren’t in bed with Will now.’

Mary half smiled, wishing she was in bed with Will, back in their own hut. But however cramped it was sharing this hut with five other women, plus Charlotte, she was very grateful to Sarah and her friends for letting them stay. In cynical moments she put their kindness down to her being back on their level. But mostly she preferred to believe that Sarah, at least, had had such a shock at seeing Will’s flogging that she had regained her old standards of compassion and generosity.

Will was in a hut with James, Samuel and Jamie, and Mary hadn’t had many chances to see him since the day of the flogging, as he’d been sent to work on the brick kilns the day after. His back still wasn’t healed. Mary was incensed at the further cruelty of forcing a man to do hard physical work when his back was torn to shreds. She had gone to meet him after that first day, and she’d cried at the sight of him. He was dragging himself along, his shirt soaked in blood, his face contorted with the pain. He went into the sea for a swim, hoping that would heal it faster, but he could barely move his arms, and his face
went so pale that Mary thought he was going to pass out again. The wounds didn’t heal with all the bending and lifting, and dirt and dust had got into them and caused infections. Will was scarred for life now, both physically and mentally.

It seemed to Mary that she was in a dark tunnel without even a chink of light at the end of it. She’d been separated from her husband and lost her hut; rations had been cut again, even more people were getting sick and each week the death toll increased.

It had once been the custom that all work stopped for a funeral and everyone attended, but not any more, otherwise no work would ever get done. Death was commonplace now, no more remarkable than a reported theft or accident. Word would go round that Jack, Bill or Kate had gone, but the only real interest was in who would get their personal effects. That was, if they hadn’t already been stolen even before the man or woman passed away. Children’s deaths had even less impact; to everyone but the mother it was just one mouth less to feed.

Mary had been pressed into laundry work the day after Will’s flogging. Although washing the officers’ and Marines’ clothes wasn’t particularly hard work, the vigilance required was exhausting. Shirts were at a premium and if left to dry unguarded, would be stolen by other women. But it was always the laundress who was punished if a shirt went missing, even if she wasn’t found with one in her possession.

Only the thought of escape kept Mary going now. It filled her mind from dawn till dusk, distracting her from
hunger, the funerals and the depravity all around her. Four women had run off into the bush, but they were soon recaptured; others who escaped were either killed by natives or died unable to find food and water; sometimes their bodies were found later. Many more just returned with their tails between their legs, only to be put back in chains.

Mary knew from Tench, who had done a lot of exploring inland, that there was nothing there to run to, just mile after mile of barren bush land. Some men had stolen a boat a while ago, but they weren’t sailors and capsized it and were soon picked up.

But Mary was familiar with boats and sailing. She knew she’d need a sextant, a great deal of provisions, and charts of the waters around here. Above all, she needed to know where the nearest civilization was, and find a boat suitable for rough seas.

She had said all this to Will a few days ago, but he’d just laughed at her. ‘A boat, a sextant and some charts! Why don’t you ask for the moon too, my lover?’ he said.

Mary was well aware of the difficulties involved, but she didn’t agree that it was impossible just because no one else had dared to do it. She knew that Captain Phillip and his officers had tried to communicate with the natives and got nowhere, but she had made inroads in that direction herself and been successful.

She attributed this to Charlotte. While the natives might be intimidated by men in uniforms, they weren’t frightened of a small child almost as naked as one of their own. While walking along the beach and around to the next
cove, collecting wood for a fire, Mary had become aware she was being watched by a group of women natives and their children. She sat down with Charlotte on her lap and sang some songs to her, and to her delight she heard a voice joining in. It was that of another small girl, and when Mary turned and smiled at her, the child came closer.

Mary did the same again for three consecutive days, and on the fourth the little girl came and sat beside her, the mother standing a little way back, watching. It wasn’t long before other children joined them, and after only a few more days, they all knew some of the words to Mary’s songs.

She showed the native women some leaves of ‘sweet tea’, the vine-like plant the convicts used as a drink. This was the closest thing they had to a cure-all. It seemed to alleviate hunger pains, it comforted and revitalized, and it was believed to ward off diseases as those who drank nothing else seemed to suffer less from dysentery. The convicts had exhausted all the sources of the plant close to the camp, and Mary hoped the natives would show her where there was more. They did, taking her there so fast she had to run to keep up with them, and they even picked it for her.

In general the convicts hated the natives. This was partly because these people were so free, while they had to work, but more because they felt they were inferior beings. Convicts were used to being looked down on as the lowest of the low, and to their minds the natives were lowlier still. They bitterly resented the way the officers
gave these savages presents and insisted they were to be treated with deference, while the convicts were subjected to cruelty, with no allowances made for their needs.