Convictions (9 page)

Jennie put an arm around her and hugged her close, keeping an eye on the reverend’s movements.

Everyone at the table went silent for a few moments.

“You’ve been such a brave girl,” Sarah said. “Your mother will be proud of you wherever she is.”

“Thank you,” Alice said. She sat up straight, rubbed hard at
her eyes and wiped her face as the reverend headed in their di
rection.

Jennie winked at her, and Alice nodded with a little smile.

The bell clanged for mealtime.

After they ate their allotted dry biscuit, there was another stint on deck to facilitate the sweeping of their quarters, each half of the convicts taking turns. Then it was Jennie’s group’s turn to attend scripture lessons.

Reverend Brantford droned through most of his lecture, until he came to a passage that particularly spoke to his strong hopes for their salvation. His passion unleashed, he fairly screamed at them, the stray lock of grey hair bouncing into his eyes with each fervent point. Jennie half expected the man to fall to the floor in a dead faint from his exertion.

“Beg for forgiveness for your felonious behaviour!” he implored, pointing his long, bony fingers at them each in turn. “Or God’s wrath shall rain down on you, and you shall suffer hellfire and damnation, forever and ever.”

Jennie quaked inside, her mind in a turmoil. She hadn’t known she was such a terrible person and still didn’t understand why God would rather they starve than feed themselves as best they could. She was so very sorry she’d taken the oats, but what were they to have done instead? Especially as the sack had been in the rubbish bin. She’d seen too many of her neighbours waste away from lack of food. Why did God want her punished so severely?

Behind her, Iris intoned, “Yes, yes, the Lord has something much better in store for us. He has a grand purpose and we shall know it soon.”

Jennie had a sinking feeling that God had forgotten them al
together.

Chapter Seven

When the warders
extinguished the lights at 8:00 p.m.,
Jennie feared it would be another sleepless night of fending off bedbugs. From the moment she landed on her pallet, she’d begun swatting at them.

“Bloody nippers!” Hildy wiggled beside her.

“I thought the sun and sea air was supposed to get rid of them,” said Gladys, slapping her body.

“Maybe from the mattresses, but that doesn’t help if they’re not gotten rid of down here in the hold,” Flo said.

Others complained too, but they had little recourse. Jennie faintly heard the whispered grumbling as fatigue overcame her.

The next thing she knew, flames consumed her. Licking at her from every direction, bright orange and hot. She screamed.

Hildy gave her a swat. “Wake up! Quit your screaming!”

Breathing heavily, Jennie was relieved that she’d only dreamt of being in hellfire. The fear the reverend infused about eternal separation from her loved ones shook Jennie to her very core. Obviously, all her praying so far was not enough. She’d have to do more. She mumbled the Lord’s Prayer, she made up prayers, she begged for her soul and forgiveness for her sins in loud whispers.

“Quiet!” Hildy swatted her again.

From then on, Jennie said the prayers in her mind, begging for mercy.

••••

As the days
and nights passed,
Jennie dreaded dusk, when she and her cohorts hauled their bedding back down to the hold again. Inevitably, she endured the almost sleepless nights fending off vermin and nightmares.

Although sick at heart, Jennie was thankful that she’d withstood any serious bouts of illness. Seasickness continued to affect many of the women for the first week and a disease of the bowels attacked almost all of them into the second.

Dr. Weymss finally solved the problem by dispensing a compound of sulphur of magnesium to each of them, followed by doses of castor oil and some other tincture that tasted like chalk. Jennie hated the taste, but didn’t want to be sick. Their routine and the management of the ship appalled Jennie and varied little, as did their atrocious food, which she knew was the reason the women were ill.

Oft times they were served tiny portions of salted meat for supper, which barely filled a little corner of their stomachs. Jennie had trouble nibbling the hardtack that went with it, having to smack it on the edge of the table to break off a piece. What was worse, as time went on, the heat below deck was almost suffocating and the stench unbearable.

Their cramped quarters filled with the odour of the bilge below them, where the ship's animal wastes were stored in gravel that was impossible to clean. The stink of vomit was the hardest to take, next only to the fetidness of the sick and dying women and children. Some had been ill even before the voyage began, and they didn’t last long under the harsh ship conditions.

The prayers, commencing again on the main deck afterwards, left little to be thankful for, so Jennie stopped praying altogether. Except for the threat of eternal flames, could hell be very different from life on this ship?

Jennie was happy to escape the drudgery of routine by occasionally helping the surgeon suture cuts whenever accidents befell crew or convicts. Kate was there too, whenever an extra pair of hands was needed. Of any of the Marys, there was no sign.

“Have you ventured to do nursing before?” Jennie asked Kate timidly one day.

Kate laughed. “Not at all, though I do have a little experience with a saw.”

Jennie looked at her in puzzlement.

In her lilting voice, Kate explained. “I got hauled up, unjust like, for cutting someone’s shrubbery. It hung in front of our doorstep for an age. My Liam’s back was acting up something dreadful. After a full shift of work, he had to crawl through the bloody stuff to get into the house.”

Just at that moment Gladys came by on her way back from the privy and poked her head in. She had overheard and said, “Neighbours can have bloody cheek all right, Kate, can’t they?” She stepped into the surgery.

“Those neighbours were just plain mean,” said Kate with a sniff. “They didn’t even eat the plums off the branches. Just let ’em rot. So what if we helped ourselves to a few while we cut back the branches?”

As Jennie listened in amazement, Gladys commiserated with Kate and then blurted, “Mine had me nicked for feeding me family a chicken.” She went on indignantly. “We was hungry and it was strutting about free like, not in any pen. I ask you, how was I to know it belonged to our neighbour and that it wasn’t free for the taking? Chickens all look alike.”

“That’s right, Gladys, as if you could tell.” Kate gave a hoot of laughter, and they grinned at one another. Jennie smiled sadly at the injustice of all of their plights. They really did seem to be very much alike – for certain in the eyes of the law.

“What’s all the gabbing about?” Sarah stepped in to join them.

While Gladys and Kate filled Sarah in, Jennie recalled other similar stories she’d heard from her former cellmates while awaiting punishment. She was saddened most by the injustice of transporting convicts for the minor crimes. The lowest sentence for transportation was seven years for even the most trivial misdeeds. Everyone she knew from her old neighbourhood was starving, and if they hadn’t stolen yet, they were on the brink of doing so, or perishing.

Gladys echoed Jennie’s thoughts when she spoke. “What’s a body to do when you are famished with no means to make a living?”

“Aye,” Sarah responded. “Is the government going to see everyone starve to death or jailed and shipped off to other countries? Sir Robert Peel may have made some good reforms, but there are some he should have left alone, or some he should yet make, like feeding the poor.”

“There won’t be anyone left in the country soon,” said Gladys.

“Except the rich,” Kate said.

“Can you picture the toffs carrying out their own slops?” Gladys snorted.

“Shh,” Jennie said suddenly. Was that the guards? Or had Lizzie stirred? She shooed the others out of the surgery. But there was no movement from Lizzie, who still lay unconscious.

Over the next few days, Jennie continued to check on Lizzie, changing her dressings as needed. Surgeon Weymss told the warders to give Jennie free access to the surgery to care for her patient.

When she wasn’t helping Alice with her letters, Jennie
e
scaped to the surgery as often as she could, puzzling over the various tins and jars filled with powders, dried plants and liquids. The sight of them reminded her a little of her grandmother’s scullery, and that calmed her somewhat. She studied the labels until she could read them, but didn’t know their purpose unless Doctor Weymss happened to use them. Then she secretly watched how he applied them and for what illness.

She also kept Lizzie company, though Lizzie never acknow-ledged her. At first, Lizzie slept a great deal, and at every slight movement she twinged with pain and whimpered. After the surgeon left each day, Jennie chattered to Lizzie about her home and family when her father was alive, even though Lizzie never responded.

One afternoon, as she straightened and dusted the medicine containers, Jennie prattled about the wonderful flower gardens they used to have; how she and her sisters, when they were little, chased butterflies and hid in the tall grass at its edges.

“Stop your nattering,” Lizzie croaked. “I can’t listen to any more about your cheery home life.”

Jennie was so surprised at Lizzie’s sudden outburst that she didn’t take offence.

“You’ve recovering!” she said, rushing to Lizzie’s side.

“Yeah, and the sooner I can get out of here and away from you the better,” Lizzie grunted.

Jennie beamed at her.

Lizzie turned her head away, but not before Jennie saw a tear slide down her cheek.

The next time Jennie returned, and for several days afterwards, Lizzie was sullen, but more vocal. She expressed her discomfort at every spasm of pain, as Jennie removed her bandages and cleaned her wounds. When Jennie spread salve on her wounds, Lizzie said nothing, though Jennie knew Lizzie felt soothed – her features softened.

“Where you’d learn to nurse, in a butcher shop?” Lizzie carped one day.

“I don’t know how to nurse at all.” Jennie laughed.

“Your hands are cold,” Lizzie continued to grouse with a slight smile on her face.

“That’s because your body is so hot. It’s working hard to heal you.”

Lizzie grunted.

“Why did they beat you?” asked Jennie lightly, smoothing salve onto Lizzie’s right shoulder.

“What did they tell you?”

“Disobeying orders and planning a mutiny. I know that last can’t be right,” said Jennie.

Lizzie cursed. “Mutiny! If I’d been planning a mutiny, I would have succeeded, and I sure wouldn’t be bone-headed enough to let them find out.”

“Why did they say that then?”

Lizzie let out a stream of oaths, and mumbled about horrible things she’d like to do to the man with the red beard.

“You mean the guard who flogged you? Red Bull? What about him?” asked Jennie.

“He lies,” said Lizzie and that’s all she would say on the matter.

Ten days after her beating, Lizzie managed to sit up for a bit, though in dreadful pain. That was the same night Dottie was brought in suffering from dysentery. Jennie tried to tend to her too, but the doctor didn’t give much hope for Dottie’s recovery.

One evening a few days later, Dr. Weymss deemed Lizzie ready to go back to her own berth.

“I’ll get her settled in,” Jennie said to the surgeon.

“Fine, but she’ll be expected to take part in all the exercises and work, so there’s no point in mollycoddling her.” The surgeon turned on his heels and headed for the ladder.

“But she can barely walk,” Jennie protested.

“All the more reason she manages to do things under her own steam soon.” The surgeon spoke from halfway up the ladder without turning to her. “The guards will pick on her like a sick chicken and won't thank you for coming to her aid.”

“But she needs time to heal.” Jennie’s protests fell on deaf ears.

“Leave it,” whispered Lizzie. “It’s part of the punishment. I’ll be fine.” She swayed to her feet, and waved Jennie away when she tried to assist.

Weakly Lizzie lurched down the passageway, pausing to lean against posts and berths. Jennie walked next to her, ready to catch her if she fell. All was well, until Lizzie reached her berth. She gasped with each movement as she stretched up her arms and tried to climb.

“Don’t. You’ll rip open your stitches,” Jennie protested.

“I’ve no choice.”

“Yes, you do,” Kate’s lilting voice came from the bottom bunk where Sarah also lay. “I’ll trade with you. You take my place down here.”

“I don’t want that heathen doxy near me,” objected Iris from next to Kate.

“Some kind of Christian you are then, not to help another human being. You’re just a mean-spirited old woman,” Sarah said with a sharpness in her voice that Jennie had never heard before.

While Jennie was surprised by Sarah’s rough manner, she also noted Sarah’s acceptance of Kate, and Kate’s kind offer. Perhaps the things that Jennie had been led to believe about the Irish weren’t true.