Wattle Circus: Chapter Nineteen
Life at sea was far more mundane than Abigail had been expecting. She grew to wonder what exactly it was that she had been expecting. The ship that had seemed so vast when first she saw it from the pier now felt incredibly cramped and frustratingly limiting. With almost 200 convicts as well as a large number of guards and crew, there was never a moment to yourself, never a corner in which to simply reflect. Finn had struck up a friendship with a boy named Jack, a scrawny child who dragged his left foot which had been run over by a carriage wheel.
Abigail had been talking a lot with a girl of 16 named Mary Ann. Mary Ann had never been to London, but told Abigail all sorts of amazing stories about her colourful life in Liverpool. Abigail had blushed a deep crimson when first told by Mary Ann why she had been transported – she had of course heard about women and girls doing these things but never really thought about them as real people she might actually come to know.
Her sister Margaret had been sent to Van Diemen’s Land the year before and she was wondering whether she would see her there.
“Not that I even know whether she is alive or anything,” she said bluntly. “Who knows? She may have gone overboard on the way over, or been eaten by the natives. Or maybe she has married the Governor? I hear anything can happen in Van Diemen’s Land.”
Every day was the same, the endless routine becoming so second nature that Abigail hardly thought about it anymore. This did free her mind to drift, but she found it difficult out here to find places for it to settle. The constantly changing weather was the only real element of surprise. One day she may be able to see the distant horizon frozen in place, as straight as can be; glassy waters reflecting a bright blue sky, an eerie stillness that kept the crew grumbling and listless – the slack sails a personal affront.
The next day, however, could be such that everyone on board was certain they were moments from being dashed to pieces. At these times, the water no longer reflected the sky, but the sky became like the sea, a boiling, angry, frothing beast, evil black clouds and towering black waves that surged as though craning to reach one another, to touch and switch places. The ship would ride its way up one side of these monstering waves, perch precariously at the top and feel like it was about to tumble into the abyss below, skimming over the barest trace of water to sink deep into the gutter, where day instantly became night. From down here the next wave was certain to be the one that broke rather than surged, that did not pick the ship up but tumbled down upon the ship, smashing the fragile toothpicks to smithereens, obliterating all trace of the ship and its cowering cargo.
At these moments, while the religious prayed to their God, Abigail thought not of herself and strangely not even of her friends. She thought of poor Lord Byron, how he would never have a chance to terrorise a ball of twine or sun himself by a window in the golden light of a lazy autumn afternoon. She thought also of her mother’s poems, poems she felt belonged not just to herself but to life itself – certainly not to the bottom of the sea.
She knew it was irrational, but she decided nothing could happen to them because it mustn’t, because this book of which she was but a custodian must continue to exist. Thankfully storms like this were rare and most of the time conditions fell between these two extremes, a steady, salty breeze blowing, the sails swelling with purpose and the crew steadily going about their tasks.
For the bulk of the prisoners on board the ship, the day began at 5.30am. Abigail was often wide awake by this stage, revelling in a few moments of peace before the cluttered clamour of competing voices, thoughts, bickering, laughing and more began to swell. They took their hammocks up to create space for movement around the cramped confines, with half of the prisoners heading to the upper deck and washing themselves at the wash tubs at 6am. They headed back down at 7.30am so the decks and toilets could be washed down, the concentration of their bodily filth sloughed away and jettisoned over the edge of the ship. Abigail and Finn had ensured they washed on alternating days, meaning the other could look after Lord Byron in the interim.
Breakfast was served at 8am, invariably bread the prisoners themselves had to bake from their rations of flour and water. From 9am they were permitted upon the top deck, the first breath of fresh air in more than 12 hours for those who had not washed. Prayers were held at 9.30am, while at 10am half the prisoners began their exercises, the other half assembled below deck in a school for ‘religious instruction’.
Dinner at noon meant a scant serving of salted beef or pork. Rice and potatoes occasionally appeared though fruit and vegetables were out of the question; occasional sips of lime juice doled out to keep scurvy at bay.
At 4pm the hammocks were restrung and half an hour later a light supper served, usually a thin soup that was barely more nutritious than dirty dish water. Prayers took place at half past six and prisoners were sent to the hammocks at 8pm, with guards conducting their rounds at nine.
There was little to tell one day from the next, until Wednesday or Thursday when prisoners were permitted to wash their clothes as well as themselves. Saturday was the one day Abigail longed for as the school wasn’t held, giving her some valuable moments with her book. On Sunday a Divine Service was held at 11am. Prisoners who admitted to not believing in God were exempted yet still required to have one of their own lead prayers amongst them, but Abigail hadn’t dared to admit she didn’t believe so attended the ‘Worship of Almighty God’.
Abigail had once believed, but recently her faith had been dashed. She had struggled to understand how an all-seeing, all-knowing God could allow the kinds of things that had happened to her to happen in the world. The more she learnt about the lives of the other prisoners before they had come on board, the harder she found it to believe that there was someone or something watching over all this. If there was, to Abigail’s mind that was even worse.
to be continued…
