Morgan's Run Read online

  No one spoke for a long while, but no one wept either. They will do, thought Richard. They will do.

  Two strange marines came aft from the forward hatch to take off their waist bands and the chain connecting them together, though the manacles remained on. Free to move now, Richard came down off the platform to see if he could locate the night buckets. How many were there? How long would they have to last between emptyings?

  “Under our platform,” said Thomas Crowder. “I think there is one for each six men—at least there are two beneath this cot. Cot! What a divine description of something Procrustes would have been proud to invent!”

  “Ye’re educated,” said Richard, perching his rump on the edge of the lower tier and stretching his legs out with a sigh.

  “Aye. So is Aaron. He is a Bristolian, I am not. I was—er—apprehended in Bristol after I escaped from the Mercury, is all. Got snabbled doing some dirty work there. Our accomplice—Aaron was in it too—was a snitch. We tried a bit of hush money—would have done the trick in London, but not in Bristol. Too many Quakers and other autem cacklers.”

  “Ye’re a Londoner.”

  “And ye’re a Bristolian, judging by the accent. Connelly, Perrott, Wilton and Hollister I know, but I never saw you in the Bristol Newgate, cully.”

  “I am Richard Morgan and I am from Bristol, but I was tried and convicted at Gloucester.”

  “I was listening to what ye said about passing the time. We will do it too if there is not enough light for cards.” Crowder sighed. “And I thought Mercury was Satan’s ferry! Alexander will be hard going, Richard.”

  “Why did ye think it would be otherwise? These things were built to house slaves, and I doubt they could have jammed many more slaves in than they have us. Save that we do have those three long tables there, so I presume they feed us seated.”

  Crowder sniffed. “Marine cooks!”

  “Surely ye did not expect the cook at the Bush Inn?” Richard went up to impart the news of the night buckets and got his dripstone out. “Now more than ever we have to filter our water, though we need not fear anyone will encroach on our space or steal our things.” His white teeth flashed in a smile. “Ye were right about Crowder and Davis, Neddy. True villains.”

  They were fed by lamplight and two surly private marines who seemed extremely disgruntled. Though each table was 40 feet long and a total of six narrow benches was provided, the three tables were men from end to end; counting heads, Richard thought that Alexander had taken about 180 men aboard that sixth day of January, 1787. That was 30 short of the total Lieutenant Shairp had mentioned. Not all were from Ceres; there were a few from Censor and rather more from Justitia, though not all the Justitia men managed to drag themselves to the tables. Some kind of sickness was among them, marked by a low fever and aching bones. Not the gaol fever, then. It was there too, however, because it always was.

  Each man was issued with a wooden bowl, a tin spoon and a tin dipper which held two quarts* comfortably; two quarts were the day’s ration of water per man. The food consisted of very hard, dark bread and a small chunk of boiled salt beef. Those with poor teeth fared badly, were reduced to trying to break up their bread with their spoons, which bent and twisted.

  * The modern imperial liquid measures of pint, quart and gallon are larger than the American, but in the eighteenth century are likely to have been the same as the modern American; leaving the British fold in 1776 meant that the United States of America kept many of the old British ways, probably including measures. Thus Richard’s quarts were likely to have contained 32 fluid ounces, not the modern imperial 40 fluid ounces.

  But there were advantages to being near the after hatch of the prison. I will now, Richard decided, risk a flogging by standing up and offering to help these young marines do a task they have no skill at whatsoever.

  “May I give ye a hand?” he asked, smiling deferentially. “I used to be a tavern-keeper.”

  The sullen face nearest him looked startled, was suddenly quite attractive. “Aye, it would be appreciated. Two of us to feed near two hundred men ain’t enough, that is certain.”

  Richard passed bowls and dippers down for some time in silence, having deftly established a routine between himself, the youth he had addressed and his equally young confrere. “Why are you marines so unhappy?” he asked then, voice low.

  “’Tis our quarters—they are lower down than yours are and nigh as crowded. We do not eat no better either. Hard bread and salt beef. Except,” he added fairly, “that we get flour and a half-pint of drinkable rum.”

  “But ye’re not convicts! Surely—”

  “On this ship,” said the other marine, snarling, “there is little difference between convicts and marines. The sailors are quartered where we should be. The only light and air we get comes through a hatch in the floor of their place—they are abaft of this bulkhead in steerage, while we are down in the hold. Alexander is supposed to be a two-decker, but no one mentioned that the second deck is being used as a hold because Alexander carries a lot of cargo and has no proper hold.”

  “She is a slaver,” said Richard, “so she does not need a true hold. Her captain is accustomed to putting the hard cargo on his orlop, the negroes in here where we are, and the crew in the stern compartment. Hence no forecastle for the crew. The quarterdeck is the captain’s.” He looked sympathetically curious. “I take it that he is accommodating your officers on the quarterdeck?”

  “Aye, in a cupboard, and with no access to his galley, so our officers have to mess with us,” said the disher-up of salt beef and bread. “They are not even allowed to use the great cabin—he keeps that for himself and the first mate, a very grand fellow. This ain’t like any ship I have ever been in. But then, ’tis the first ship I have been in what did not belong to the Navy.”

  “Ye’ll be below the water line when the cargo is aboard,” said Richard thoughtfully. “She will be carrying a mighty big cargo if she is contracted to cargo as well as convicts. I would reckon she will have near twenty thousand gallons of water alone if the legs are two months long.”

  “Ye know a lot about ships for a tavern-keeper,” said the lad scooping out water.

  “I am from Bristol, where ships matter. My name is Richard. May I know yours?”

  “I am Davy Evans, he is Tommy Green,” said the water-scooper. “We cannot do much about our situation here, but when we get to Portsmouth next week ’twill be different. Major Ross will soon tidy Captain Duncan Sinclair up.”

  “Ah yes, the Commandant of Marines and Lieutenant-Governor.”

  “How d’ye know that?”

  “From a friend.”

  So a great many questions have been answered, Richard reflected as he filtered his water. The owners grabbed at the tender, falsified a few little details about Alexander’s history, and chose to ignore the fact that she would have to accommodate marines as well as convicts. Yon lads are right—the contractors see little difference between marines and convicts. So we are for Portsmouth next week, and a captain named Duncan Sinclair is as sure to be Scotch as a man named Robert Ross, Commandant of Marines. The confrontation between them will be horrible. If I remember my Newton, the irresistible force will collide with the immovable object.

  Alexander did not sail for Portsmouth that week, the next week or the week after that; she still sat at anchor in the Thames. On the 10th of January she did get under way to an accompaniment of moans and whimpers from those who expected to be seasick, but she sailed only as far as Tilbury, and that by courtesy of a towline from a tender. Still well inside the sheltered waters of the Thames, hardly even rocking.

  By now there were 190 convicts on board, though a couple had died and Lieutenant Shairp had delegated the top tier of a midline set of platforms forward of the tables as a receiving place for the sick in an attempt to contain whatever was threatening to rage. This total of 190 would fall by one, be added to by two as the days went by, so that even precise men like Richard finally gave up trying to
count at around 200.

  The presence of manacles was bitterly resented, but Sergeant Knight (very co-operative about planks, brackets and whatever else was needed in return for rum money—nor were Richard’s men the only ones to make use of the sergeant’s little weakness) refused to remove these exasperating restraints. Until convict discontent boiled into a very vocal and terrifying demonstration of anger on the release of one man, pardoned. A maddening, relentless banging, shouting and thumping began. When the marines came down to issue food and water they descended in force, perched the scatter cannon on the hatch border and circled it with muskets. Only then did they realize how few of them there were to control 200 furious men.

  As it was his ship, Captain Duncan Sinclair ordered that the convicts be taken permanently out of their manacles and paraded on deck twelve at a time for a few minutes during each day. However, an escaped convict would have cost him £40 out of his own pocket, so Sinclair had the marines and some of his crew man the ship’s boats, then had them row in constant circles around Alexander.

  Those few minutes on deck were among the best Richard had ever experienced. His fetters felt like feathers, the freezing air smelled sweeter than wallflowers and violets, the turgid river was a ribbon of liquid silver, and the sight of the animals frisking cheekily a greater pleasure than bedding Annemarie Latour. It seemed as if half the marines owned at least one dog, as did some of the crew; there were liver-colored hounds, dewlapped bulldogs, silly spaniels, terriers and a great many mongrels. The big marmalade cat had a tortoiseshell wife and a family of six, and most of the ewes and sows were gravid. Ducks and geese roamed loose, but the chickens were penned in a coop near the crew’s galley.

  After that first walk the foetid prison was more bearable, a sentiment Richard was not alone in feeling. The demonstration had died down the moment hands were freed of manacles, and the deck privilege was not withdrawn.

  On his third outing Richard finally saw Captain Duncan Sinclair, and stared in amazement. Hugely fat! So fat that all his pleasures were certainly of the table—how did he piss accurately when his arms couldn’t possibly reach his penis? Looking very humble and as if the word “escape” were not a part of his vocabulary, Richard clinked across the deck to take a turn from larboard to starboard below the quarterdeck upon which Captain Sinclair stood. For a moment his eyes met a pair of extremely shrewd grey ones; he bowed his head respectfully and moved away. Not a mere tub of lard, for all his size. . . . Lazy to the point of inertia he may be, but when the Devil takes the reins and drives, I will warrant he can rise to the challenge. What a to-do there will be in Portsmouth when he and the Commandant of Marines clash over whereabouts the marine contingent will sling their hammocks! A pity that I will never know what passes between them, albeit I am bound to learn the outcome. Davy Evans and Tommy Green will be dying to tell me.

  Toward the end of January two more ships hove to off Tilbury Fort, an oversized sixth-rater and a neat-looking sloop. When it came time for Richard’s turn on deck he went straight to the rail near the bows and stared at them intently; rumors of their advent had already spread around the prison. By mutual agreement Richard and his five companions separated the moment they emerged on deck, hugging a tiny span of freedom from proximity to each other. Since no one had yet tried to escape, the marines were more relaxed about their guard duty; provided that the convicts were quiet and orderly in their progress, no one bothered them. Thus Richard stood alone, his hands on the rail, gazing. And had no inkling that he was one of the human cargo the sharp eyes of the crew had singled out as interesting.

  “They are our escort to Botany Bay,” said a voice in his ear. A pleasant voice containing a great deal of charm.

  Richard turned his head to see the man who had been pointed out to him as Alexander’s fourth mate. She carried a very big crew for this mammoth voyage, hence four mates and four watches. Tall, willowy, with a handsomeness some would have called slightly pretty, and like Richard in coloring—very dark hair, light eyes with jet lashes. His eyes were the blue of cornflowers, however, and merry.

  “Stephen Donovan from Belfast,” he said.

  “Richard Morgan from Bristol.” Edging a little away from Mr. Donovan to make it appear as if they were not teamed up for a chat, Richard smiled. “What can ye tell me about them, Mr. Donovan?”

  “The big one is an old Navy storeship, the Berwick. She has just undergone a refit to turn her into a sort of a ship of the line and she has been renamed Sirius, since that is a southern star of first magnitude. They have given her six carronades and four six-pounders as armament, though I hear that Governor Phillip is refusing to sail with less than fourteen six-pounders. I do not blame him, when ye think that Alexander has four twelve-pounders as well as the scatter cannon.”

  “Alexander,” said Richard deliberately, “is not only a slaver out of Bristol, but was once a privateer with sixteen twelve-pounders. Even with four she will outgun most of those who try to take her—if they can catch her, that is. She’s capable of near two hundred nautical miles a day in the right wind.”

  “Ah, I do like a Bristol man!” said Mr. Donovan. “A seaman?”

  “Nay, a tavern-keeper.”

  The vivid blue eyes rested on Richard’s face with a caress in them. “Ye look like no tavern-keeper I have ever seen.”

  Quite aware of the overture, Richard feigned bland ignorance. “It runs in the family,” he said easily. “My father is one too.”

  “I know Bristol. Which tavern?”

  “The Cooper’s Arms on Broad Street. My father still has it.”

  “While his son is being transported to Botany Bay. For what, I wonder? There is no look of the booze bibber about ye and ye’re an educated man. Are ye sure ye’re a simple tavern-keeper?”

  “Absolutely. Tell me more about yon two ships.”

  “Sirius is about six hundred tons, a wee bit under, and she is carrying mostly people—wives of marines and the like. She has her own captain, one John Hunter, who is commanding her alone at the moment. Phillip is in London battling the Home Department and the Court of St. James. I hear her surgeon is the son of a doctor of music and takes his pianoforte with him. Yes, she is a good old girl, Sirius, but on the slow side.”

  “And the sloop?”

  “The tender Supply, a very old girl indeed—one might say, at near thirty, past her last prayers. Commander’s name is Lieutenant Harry Ball. This will be a cruel voyage for her—she has never been farther from the Thames than Plymouth.”

  “Thank you for the information, Mr. Donovan.” Richard stood straight and saluted him in naval fashion before shuffling away.

  And that is a kind of man loves being at sea, but never in the same vessel for more than two voyages. Loves come and go for Stephen Donovan, who is married to the sea.

  Once back in the gloom of the prison Richard related his news about their naval escorts. “So I imagine we will be off any day now, at least to Portsmouth.”

  Ike Rogers had his own item to impart. “We will have women at Botany Bay,” he said with great satisfaction. “Lady Penrhyn is carrying naught but women—a hundred of them, ’tis said.”

  “Half a one for each Alexander man,” said Bill Whiting. “It would be my luck to get the half that talks, so I think I will stick to sheep.”

  “There are more women going from Dunkirk in Plymouth.”

  “Together with more sheep and maybe a heifer, eh, Taffy?”

  On the first day of February the four ships finally sailed, having been delayed twenty-four hours by a merchant seaman pay dispute—very common.

  It took four days of placid sailing to cover the 60 miles to Margate Sands; they had not yet rounded the North Foreland into the Straits of Dover, but a few men were seasick. In Richard’s cot all was well, but Ike Rogers became ill the moment Alexander felt a slight sea and continued very poorly until some hours after the anchor went down off Margate.

  “Peculiar,” said Richard, giving him a little filtered water
to drink. “I fancied that a horseman would not turn a hair at the sea—riding is perpetual motion.”

  “Up and down, not side to side,” whispered Ike, grateful for the water, all he could keep down. “Christ, Richard, I will die!”

  “Nonsense! Seasickness passes, it lasts only until ye get your sea legs.”

  “I doubt I ever will. Not a Bristolian, I suppose.”

  “There are many Bristolians like me who have never been aboard a ship afloat. I have no idea how I will fare when we get into real seas. Now try to eat this pap. I soaked some of the bread in water. It will stay down, I promise,” Richard coaxed.

  But Ike turned his head away.

  Neddy Perrott had come to an arrangement with Crowder and Davis in the cot below; in return for a loud warning whenever someone above was going to puke, William Stanley from Seend and Mikey Dennison would be delegated to clean the messes off the deck and empty the night buckets. Against the stern bulkhead on either aisle was a 200-gallon barrel full of sea-water which the convicts could use to wash themselves, their clothes and the premises. It had been a shock to discover that the night buckets had to be emptied into the lead-lined scuttles which ran below the bottom platform against larboard and starboard hulls; these drained into the bilges, which were supposed to be evacuated daily by means of two bilge pumps. But those with experience of ships like Mikey Dennison vowed that Alexander’s bilges were the foulest they had ever, ever encountered.

  During January they had had to use the emptied night buckets to flush the excrement away down the scuttle drains, which meant they had nothing bigger than a two-quart dipper for all other sorts of washing. Inspecting at Margate and revolted by conditions in the prison, Lieutenant Shairp issued an extra bucket to each cot and also provided mops and scrubbing brushes. That meant a bucket for bodily waste and deck scrubbing and a second for washing clothes and persons.