Behind the Sun (29 page)

And then Harrie had sat her down and held her hands and told her she might not realise it but Gabriel Keegan had done something really nasty to her, and told her what. Harrie had been crying but she, Rachel, had just been confused. She didn’t remember anything at all happening like Harrie said Keegan had done — and if it really had happened, she was pretty sure it would have stuck in her mind. So as far as she was concerned, it hadn’t. And that was that. Forever. Lucas would understand about her falling off the foredeck, but he’d be very upset by anything else.

The others — Friday, Sarah and Harrie — were treating her as though she were poorly. She didn’t know why. Yes, she had the fits, and once they’d passed she could only very vaguely recall anything about them, but she wasn’t what she would call ill. She knew it wasn’t very pleasant for them, because they told her what a roaring little witch she’d been, but it wasn’t really her fault. Was it? It felt as though something bad took possession of her body so that there was only a tiny bit of her real self left — not enough to tell the bad thing to go away. And then she would sleep for a while and the bad thing
would
go away and she would be all right again. But she wasn’t poorly. Except for the headaches.

They always started at the back of her head,
not
where her scar was but on the right, halfway up her skull, just above the knobbly bit. First would come a pinprick, not even of pain, just a little
shaft of sensation telling her a headache was coming. Then, within the hour, it would flare into a burning mass and burrow into her brain with teeth of shattered glass and claws of fire, gouging out a hollow where it would settle and throb like a new heart for more than a day and a night. Sometimes the pain would get so bad she would take a needle and push it into the meaty pad at the base of her thumb, just to cause herself more hurt to distract herself from her sore head. Now, though, she could have Mr Downey’s special medicine whenever she wanted it and what a difference it made! The headaches hadn’t gone away, but now she could sleep through them. It was a blessing.

It meant she felt more rested and less worried about being a drain on poor Harrie and the others, and she could do her chores again, which she really quite liked, except for cleaning the water closets. Though Mr Downey said she wasn’t allowed to go near the ship’s rails. Under any circumstances.

She liked being up on deck, wrapped in her jacket and snug in her boots, though the wind did make her ears sing and the cold went straight though her. Yesterday there had been whales again, great gleaming beasts with backs the colour of thunderclouds, and darting porpoises, and a high, wheeling albatross that made the sailors curse. She liked the porpoises, in particular the way they seemed to laugh up at her when they leapt out of the waves, as if to say, we know your secret, yes we do.

She was expecting Lucas’s baby. It was only very tiny, nestled there all warm inside her tummy, but she knew. She’d missed two courses now and felt squiffy in the mornings though she hadn’t actually spewed up, and her bubbies were sore, and she knew. Lucas was going to be so pleased with her and she could just see the smile of happiness on his beautiful, handsome face. He said he wanted lots of babies, boys and girls. It might even be born by the time he came for her, and together they would go back to England, a perfect little family, and start again.

Harrie
was
going on at her, though. And Friday and Sarah. Asking her if she’d been on the rag yet, did she feel sick, on and on as though her expecting a baby was something to worry about. But it wasn’t. Janie had a baby. She had two, in fact, now poor Evie had died. And other girls on the ship not much older than fifteen had babies. Why couldn’t she have one? She was betrothed to Lucas, after all. It was silly. She
would
tell them, but not until…it was too late.

It was very cold, though, and she knew she’d got thinner while she’d been in the hospital. Her hip bones stuck out now and Sarah said she looked as scrawny as when they first came on board the
Isla
. She was worried that if it got any colder she wouldn’t be able to keep the growing baby inside her warm enough. It was even cold down on the prison deck, despite them all being jammed in there at night. It was the temperature of the sea around the ship’s hull, according to Mr Meek, but anyone could have worked that out. They saw icebergs nearly every day now, towering mountains off in the distance to starboard, glittering green and white in the harsh sunlight. The crew said only one eighth of an iceberg could be seen above water, but she didn’t know if she believed them. It was all very strange and beautiful.

But it was still bloody cold. She had Harrie’s stockings now, and was wearing the new set of slops Sarah had found for her over the patched and repaired skirt and blouse she’d wrecked during one of her fits, but still she shivered, especially during the day. At night it wasn’t so bad, tucked up snugly in the bunk between the others, but during the day and up on deck she felt the cold in her bones. Harrie had sewn a lining of duck into her jacket, and that helped, but she did wonder if she would ever be warm again. They were saying New South Wales had a balmy, sunny climate, and Captain Holland said yesterday at muster he thought they would reach port in seven weeks, so that wasn’t much longer to wait, she supposed. Seven weeks. She would be thirteen weeks gone by then
and perhaps a month after that she could expect to feel the baby quicken inside her.

And when that happened she could write to Lucas every day and tell him all about what their baby was doing.

Captain Holland lowered his spyglass. Not that he needed it; the columns of charcoal-hued storm clouds roiling on the western horizon were so ominous there could be only one course of action. Already there was a hard following sea and spume flickering across the deck, and above his head the mizen sails cracked like whips.

‘
All hands!
’ he bellowed as he collapsed the spyglass. ‘
Trice up and trim sails, we’ll outrun her!
’ He gestured at the prisoners milling about staring up at the strange, yellowing sky and ordered Silas Warren, ‘Get them below and lock the hatch.’

‘Is that wise, sir?’ Silas ventured.

Holland barked, ‘They can’t stay up here!’

Silas grabbed at his hat before the wind snatched it away and extended an arm towards the mass of black cloud to the west. ‘No, sir, I meant running.’

‘No choice, Mr Warren. Now snap to it.’

Silas Warren passed the order to Joel Meek, who swung down the companion ladder to the waistdeck and herded the women, beginning to panic now at the looming storm and sudden flurry of activity from the crew, down into the gloom of the prison deck. Struggling to suppress his own fear, he closed the hatch after them, neglecting to slide the bolt home.

Friday, a balloon of terror swelling in her chest, threw herself onto the bunk and blurted, ‘Bloody hell, did you see those storm clouds? I’ve a terrible feeling, a terrible,
terrible
feeling.’ Her voice, already shrill, went up a notch, competing with wails of alarm from the other prisoners. ‘We’ll be trapped in here if the ship goes down and we’ll not get out and we’ll go down with it and we’ll drown and —’

Sarah slapped her.

‘Ow!’ Friday’s hand went to her cheek. ‘What was that for?’

‘You’re panicking.’

Harrie sat on the edge of the bunk beside her. ‘Take lots of slow, deep breaths. In and out, that’s right.’

Friday tried hard, but still a little scream welled up and squeaked out. ‘Fuck it, where’s my pipe?’ She dug around in her things until she found it, furiously tamped in tobacco wheedled from Joel Meek and lit it, her face and shoulders relaxing visibly as she sucked in the smoke.

Around her, other women followed her lead and took the opportunity to break the rules and smoke below deck. What did it matter, if they were all bound for watery graves? The shouting and babble died away as smoke began to fill the long cabin and the women hunkered down to ride out the storm. Those with children drew them close. Janie Braine abandoned the top bunk and squeezed in below with Harrie, Rachel, Sarah and Friday, jammed against the hull with her two infants wrapped in a blanket and tucked in her arms. Sally Minto, not keen on being flung about in the top bunk by herself, climbed down and squashed in with four of her friends in another bunk. The temperature, already low, dropped even further.

They hunched in the semi-darkness, oil lamps swinging wildly as the
Isla
heaved, rolled and groaned over the rising seas, listening to the wind howl ever more furiously across the deck above and waiting in terror for the storm to overtake them.

And finally it did. With an ear-shattering boom the rain came, crashing onto the upper deck with a noise like a hundred thousand drummer boys, and pouring though the cracks between the planks and into the prison. Soon not a square inch nor a body was dry and the floor of the deck lay knee-deep in water, even though it was spilling on through into the hold below. The women, utterly powerless, lifted what they could and held on tight and prayed.

Hours or perhaps only minutes later, the
Isla
’s timbers groaned even more hideously as the seas rose higher still. Those not firmly
wedged in place tumbled about in peril. Harrie watched in horror as two women and a child rolled off a top bunk onto the floor and were washed towards the stern along with the water as the deck tilted at an angle of almost forty degrees. They came to a jarring halt as one of the women lodged against the base of the companion ladder, skirts rucked around her waist, her lower leg bent at a horrid angle. Grimacing in agony, she clawed at the edge of a bunk and hauled herself onto it.

Friday, her eyes screwed shut and her own long legs jammed against a post at the end of the bunk to keep everyone in, cried out in terrified anger, ‘Lord have mercy, for God’s
sake
!
Fuck!
’

The ship pitched the other way and the child in the water reversed direction, screaming his head off. Harrie reached out, scooped him up and dumped him between herself and Rachel. He was hysterical, his face a mass of scrapes and snot. She put her arm around him and held him tight against her.

It went on and on, the ship pitching and rolling at angles far too steep to allow anyone to move deliberately. The noise remained cacophonous: a steady, high-pitched shriek from the wind tearing across the deck and through the rigging, the constant roar of pounding rain, and the relentless smashing of the mountainous waves against the
Isla
’s hull.

Friday yelled something.

‘
What?
’ Sarah shouted.

‘
What if they’re all dead?
’ Friday pointed upwards.

Harrie thought it was the single most cheerless thing she’d ever heard anyone say.

Shouts and shrieks came from farther along the prison deck. Harrie couldn’t see what was happening and didn’t want to. She took hold of Rachel’s hand, pulled the boy closer and closed her eyes.

More time passed. Gradually, the seas became calmer and the rain eased off. The storm was passing. There was no way of telling what time it was, or even whether it was day or night.

Eventually Friday, unable to bear being below deck any longer and bathed in sharp-smelling sweat, every inch of her body aching from nervous tension, declared, ‘I’m going up.’

‘You can’t,’ Sarah said. ‘They locked the hatch.’

‘Then I’ll bang on it ’til they
un
lock it. I can’t
stand
it down here!’

She stepped off the bunk into more than a foot of sloshing water, though the level seemed to be going down, but it must still be raining as water was dripping steadily through the upper deck. Or was it sea water? She stuck out her tongue. Salt.

‘Wait for me.’ Rachel scrambled after her, clinging onto the table as the ship continued to roll.

They climbed the ladder with difficulty, slipping on the icy rungs, and hammered on the hatch, shouting to be let out until Friday pushed hard against it and realised it wasn’t actually locked. She managed to raise it several inches, the wind grabbed it and flipped it open and they scrambled up on deck, where a vicious gust almost knocked them off their feet.

Behind them there was a mad rush as relief at not having drowned galvanised the women and they poured up out of the prison onto the waistdeck. Where, like Friday and Rachel, they stopped, open-mouthed.

‘
Get back below!
’ Captain Holland shouted from the afterdeck where he had been battling with the wheel for almost six hours. He was drenched, utterly exhausted, frozen to the bone and in a filthy temper. And he was frightened. ‘
God’s blood, Mr Warren, get them below!
’

But the women ignored him. Stormclouds the colour of tin plate lay so low there was no distinction between sky and ocean; they were adrift in a great, lightning-slashed dome of greyness and water. And no more than a thousand yards to port rode a decrepit-looking vessel, her mouldering stern gallery looming as she gathered way, gun ports visible along two crumbling decks, wisps of low cloud
drifting through remnants of torn and ragged sails hanging limply from her towering masts. She seemed to hover for a moment, the waves breaking through gaping black holes in her hull, and then she was gone, dissolving into the rain and spume.

A shriek came, then more, before the sound was torn away by the wind.

‘
I said get them below!
’ Holland bellowed until his voice cracked.

So back down the women went again, the crew easing their own fear, and their anger at being pulled from their posts, by shoving them hard and delivering the odd sly kick.

Waiting at the bottom of the ladder for the aisle to clear, Friday said to Sarah, ‘Did you see it?’

‘See what?’

‘That…whatever it was. You must have.’

‘It was the
Flying Dutchman
.’ Rachel’s eyes sparkled with excitement. ‘The ghost ship! Matilda was talking about it the other day. She says the crew are doomed to sail the high seas for eternity.’