Behind the Sun (11 page)

He was also still vexed by the fact that he had been denied permission by his superiors to perform his medical examinations somewhere suitable within the confines of Woolwich Dockyard, before his charges boarded the
Isla
. He was firmly of the opinion that at least some of the diseases he saw and treated on a regular basis were passed from one patient to another through actual physical contact, or at least the sharing of confined spaces, and did not have their genesis in the miasmas of the cesspit or the rubbish heap. It was a view that went against current medical wisdom and was considered by the majority of his medical colleagues to be seriously flawed, outlandish even, but his experiments with various medical treatments and remedies were furnishing his theories with considerable substance. It seemed to him that it would be far more sensible to examine the prisoners who were to be his charges — and the same could be applied to emigrants, for that matter —
before
they had a chance to mingle aboard the transport and spread any diseases they might be harbouring.

His greatest fear was typhus, also known as gaol fever, ship fever, spotted fever, famine fever and putrid fever. It was the curse of the military and prisons — in fact, of any group of people confined in unhygienic, crowded spaces — and every surgeon’s nightmare. Symptoms were aches in the head and body, weakness, vomiting, fever and delirium, and a rusty-red rash that began on the torso but spread and worsened to gangrenous sores. It passed among the population rapidly and was very often fatal. Other convict ships had discovered typhus on board and the outcome had been disastrous.

Of course, these women, like all the convicts he had superintended, had been crammed together in prison for months and had quite possibly already contracted anything going around, but there was always a chance he might be able to spot particular symptoms and remove the carriers before they all boarded and set sail. He hoped so, anyway.

He had also wanted the women to wash and change into their new slops ashore, to avoid infecting the
Isla
with the vermin prison inmates always harboured, but no, permission had been denied for that as well, even though he knew there were several vacant buildings that might have been adapted for that purpose. He suspected it was because these prisoners were all female and the idea of one hundred-odd convict women, some of them whores, some of them mothers, milling about, distracting his men and befouling his lovely dockyard, had turned the admiral’s stomach.

This was James’s fourth appointment on a convict ship. He didn’t enjoy the duty and wasn’t aware of any Royal Navy surgeon who particularly did, but he did take a certain satisfaction from overseeing the passage of his charges from England to New South Wales in a reasonably healthy and fit state, some even arriving with better constitutions than that with which they’d embarked. They were a trial, though, and the women far worse than the men. He’d had to admit, if only to his wife, that he had felt some trepidation when he’d learnt that the
Isla
would carry only women.

He had dual authority with the ship’s master in all non-nautical matters, which meant that the inhumane treatment of convicts during some earlier voyages, which he had not tolerated under any of his own watches, could not occur. He’d used this authority to ensure that provisions would be adequate, as per naval regulations, and the ship’s hospital suitably furnished and well stocked. Located on the same deck as the prison, but to the stern and separated by a bulkhead, it had been fitted with six beds and two cradles, lockable cupboards, a work table and shelves with raised rims to prevent items sliding off in rough seas. The ventilation was
almost
adequate, too, the lattice-covered hatch being set above the centre of the cabin. He would need to choose two or three suitable women to act as attendants when the ship got under way. As well, he’d had a cubicle within the hospital curtained off and fitted out as an examination area with a small desk at which he could write his notes, so that the women could be afforded some privacy when speaking with him. The hospital, in fact, had been located at the expense of the crew’s quarters, now squeezed into an even smaller space beneath the officers’ cabins on the afterdeck.

It was true he’d had to lobby with some energy for all this, but James had concluded that the master, Captain Josiah Holland, was neither an unkind nor unpleasant man. He was flawed, however, in the sense that he seemed far more at ease with the ocean and the winds than he was with his fellow human beings. Still, James felt confident that he and his charges were in competent hands. Josiah Holland ran a tight and efficient ship, that was already clear; his sailing record must be reasonably unblemished for him to have won the tender to transport the convicts, and his ship sound to have passed the navy’s inspection.

The
Isla
, an ordinary merchantman, was, at three hundred and seventy tons, not a particularly large vessel, her deck measuring ninety-seven feet in length and her beam twenty-eight feet. She was a barque, triple-masted and square-rigged. Her hold was deep
and she sat low when fully loaded, depending on her cargo, but generally she rode the sea well, according to her captain.

On this voyage she carried a crew of thirty; her master, three officers, a carpenter, a sailmaker, a cook, twenty-one seamen and two boys. In addition, six ‘free’ passengers would also be travelling to New South Wales: a minister, his wife and their two young daughters, and two gentlemen bound for appointments in the New South Wales government. Which, including the twenty-five children under the age of seven allowed to accompany their convict mothers and the further thirteen prisoners they were to pick up at Portsmouth, gave James a total of one hundred and seventy-one potential patients. He sighed. It was a lot for one surgeon to oversee, but not enough to justify an assistant surgeon and, actually, fewer than he’d superintended on previous trips. Providing no truly disastrous event occurred — a shipwide epidemic or some such — he should manage.

At the sound of boots on the hospital’s companion ladder he whipped his feet down off his writing desk and sat up as the third mate ushered a young girl into the room.

James felt his heart plummet. This was the girl who yesterday afternoon had declared she had been feeling poorly of late, but that wasn’t the cause of his anxiety. ‘Sit, please,’ he said, indicating a straight-backed chair next to the examination bed. ‘Thank you, Mr Meek.’

The girl waited until Third Mate Meek had gone, then sat down, her knees primly together and her eyes downcast.

James consulted the muster list. ‘Rachel Winter, is that correct?’

She nodded.

‘Aged fifteen?’

‘Yes, sir.’

She looked up at him, and he knew for certain she was going to be trouble, or at least the cause of it. Her eyes were huge and the exact colour of cornflowers, her pale skin clear if a little anaemic-looking,
and her hair thick and extremely fair. She was very, very pretty. And tiny. She had the appearance of a living doll and she would drive the men to distraction. He’d seen it happen before and had no doubt it would happen on this voyage, if he didn’t keep a very close eye on both his charges and Captain Holland’s men. He stifled another sigh.

‘Do you have any illnesses, Rachel?’

He could see she was struggling with her answer. She looked reasonably healthy, except for some sort of sore on the side of her neck, but they all had them, these prison women. It was the profoundly inadequate diet and lack of exercise, he was convinced of it. He wondered if she might be a little simple, which would be a terrible shame, with such lovely looks.

‘You said yesterday you had been feeling unwell for some time. Have you had a cough, or bleeding, or eruptions of pus or anything like that? Perhaps —’

‘No,’ she said suddenly, scowling at him. ‘I lied. I’ve not been sick at all.’

Briefly he pondered what might have solicited such a cross outburst, then went back to his notes. ‘You’re not married?’

It paid to make sure, as some women declared they were when they weren’t, wrongly believing that newly arrived female convicts were automatically assigned to their husbands and intending to pose as the wives of friends or colleagues already in New South Wales in the hope of gaining more freedom. This frequently caused problems when they lodged genuine applications to marry. Though some women, of course, actually did have common law or legal spouses serving sentences in New South Wales or Van Diemen’s Land.

‘I’m betrothed. My fiancé is a soldier.’

She said this with such defiance that James suspected there was much more to the story than he was ever going to be told.

‘Is there a chance that you could be with child?’

She looked away. ‘No, there isn’t.’

‘Would you please recline on the table so that I may examine you?’

He busied himself rearranging things on his desk while she climbed up on the table and lay down, her gaze fixed on the lamp that swung slowly from the ceiling.

‘If I touch you anywhere that causes pain or discomfort, you must tell me, do you understand?’

She nodded. She was filthy and she stank, but they all did. He was accustomed to foul smells, of course, but the stink that clung to the inmates of England’s prisons seemed to have an eye-watering intensity all of its own. He reminded himself to check that extra water barrels had been ordered aboard so they could all bathe thoroughly and launder what remained of their civilian clothing prior to sailing.

He began his examination. Palpating her arms and legs through the fabric of her clothing he found no evidence of recent or past broken bones, felt no telltale swelling of the lower belly that would indicate pregnancy, and saw no major abnormalities of the skin visible to him apart from gaol sores. Until he appointed female assistants who could act as chaperones he would not be carrying out examinations of an intimate nature and then only if expressly required. He had colleagues who had found themselves in deeply compromising situations due to attempts at blackmail, or simply as the result of malicious behaviour, and he had no intention of being caught in the same trap. It meant he could not initially examine for indications of syphilis or gonorrhoea, but to put off the ship women afflicted with those particular maladies would be to sail with the prison deck half empty, which would defeat the purpose of the voyage. He put his stethoscope to his ear, listened to her breathing and heard nothing untoward.

‘Sit up, please.’

He looked into her mouth, noting that she had all her teeth and that her gums were reasonably healthy, in her ears and into her eyes. Then he paused.

‘Blink, please.’

She blinked.

‘Again.’

She did it again. He moved his face closer to hers, covered her left eye with his hand, then uncovered it. The right pupil was larger than the left and didn’t change regardless of the amount of light it received.

‘Has your eye always been like this?’ He tapped her right temple.

‘Like what?’

‘The pupil seems to be fixed. Do you suffer from pains in the head?’

‘I…no, not really.’

‘In bright sunlight do you find yourself squinting?’

‘No.’

James peered into her eye a moment longer. Perhaps it was simply a congenital abnormality. He sat down at his desk. ‘You appear fit and hale to me, Rachel. The boil on your neck seems to be on the mend. If it doesn’t improve, come to me for a poultice.’

She slid off the table and straightened her skirts. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Thank you. You may go.’

She left, disappearing through the curtains. He stared after her for quite a while. She might not be pregnant now, but he had a horrible feeling he could have the devil’s own job making sure she remained that way over the next few months.

The last of the Newgate women arrived with their children late that afternoon. By the time they’d all embarked, come below, fought over the remaining berths, changed into their new slops, stowed their belongings, eaten supper, walked round the deck for the fresh air on which Mr Downey seemed so keen, been sent below again for the night, been told to shut up by the first mate, and tentatively settled in, it was nine o’clock. The children, however, all under the age of seven and either frightened or overexcited, could
not effectively be kept quiet, which caused the majority of women without children to shout at those who had them, which upset the children further, which caused the master himself to storm down the ladder and threaten troublemakers with a night in the solitary cells in the hold. When he left, the women discovered that the hatch had been locked, and had been all along, which made Friday and Sarah laugh because they were, after all, in a floating prison. Friday began to bash the ceiling with her wooden bowl, daring Liz Parker to forget about playing bloody cards for once and get off her arse and show some spunk — there could be a fire in here and if they couldn’t get out they’d all be burnt to a crisp. In less than a minute the aisles were jammed with women all banging on the roof and shouting to be let out, except for Friday, who had gone back to her bunk.

It wasn’t long before Captain Holland reappeared, his face livid in the glow of his lamp, accompanied by several of his men bearing drawn pistols. Bellowing to be heard over the yells and hammering and catcalls of the women and the piercing shrieks of the children, he finally drew his own pistol and let loose a shot. The women scattered like rats to their berths, leaving Liz Parker, too heavy to move quickly, marooned in the middle of the prison deck. At a signal from the captain she was unceremoniously dragged up the ladder, swearing the air blue.

At the top she dug in her toes momentarily and screeched down at Friday, ‘I’ll get you for this, you scabby whore!’

Friday waved gaily and snuggled under her blanket.

Eventually, the cabin settled and the children, exhausted from such a long and eventful day, nodded off. The Thames lapped with an almost unbroken rhythm against the
Isla
’s hull and her timbers creaked as she rocked gently. The snores and somnolent mumbles began.