“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 [2] 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.
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
“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
“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.
