bittersweet parting. This single memory of the darling buds of May would linger with them for the remainder of their lives. They would hold their grandchildren in their laps under a different sky, and tell of the soft shining of the English countryside. They would remember these two days, when they had rocked and bumped in shackles along a rutted road, as if, for this short space in time, they had been transported through the gates of paradise itself.
It was an unbearable wrench for several of the younger women, who wept piteously for the time it took to arrive at Woolwich, where Destiny II creaked and groaned to the slap of the tide. They came upon it suddenly at the turn of a large warehouse and they immediately forsook the rattle and rumble of the cobblestones and turned into the quay, where the wheels of the cart squeaked and lurched along the uneven dockside timbers. Only then, with the cart drawn to a halt beside the squat vessel and with the sudden silence, into which dropped the call of a gull and a soft phlurrr from the nostrils of one of the cart horses, did the finality of the sentence of transportation come to each of them.
Standing on the dockside next to the gangway was a diminutive male in frock coat, dirty shirt with a sweat- soiled neckerchief, breeches, hose and tiny brass-buckled shoes much in need of repair. His hair was cropped, though not evenly or in the convict style, and stuck up in raggedy bits an inch or so all about his skull, with whiskers, once dark and now densely speckled with grey. These also stuck out and framed his face from sideburns to the circumference of his chin. Heavy tufted eyebrows, black as pitch, seemed to entirely encase his small bright eyes. Jutting at right angles to this furry visage were two large thin-skinned ears to which the light from the sun behind him gave a bright crimson glow. The total effect was of a remarkable likeness to a simian creature, a monkey dressed in a frock coat, breeches and hose.
'Gawd, look at that!' Mary exclaimed.
The tiny man chuckled and threw an arm upwards pointing to the sky. ' 'Gawd', now that be a partickler name what Mr Smiles don't like folks to take in vain! That be three punishments all at once!' He tapped the first finger of his left hand with the forefinger of the right. 'Short rations and no port wine for the father!' He tapped the finger beside it. 'Two days' bread and water in the coal hole, for the son!' He tapped the third. 'Attendance to Bible study for a month, that be for the Holy Ghost!' He looked up at Mary. 'Swear away, me dear, help yourselfs, last chance afore comin' on board to be rid of all that bile! What's your name then?'
'Mary Abacus. What's it to you if I swear?' Mary challenged., 'Ah, yes! For me? Well it be a delightful hopportunity, Mary Habacus. A most pleasant task to do you…' He paused in mid-sentence and pointed to the abacus under Mary's arm. 'What be that? A contraption is it? Them black and red beads, it ain't witchcraft is it?'
'Abacus. It be an abacus.'
'A habacus, eh? An' pray tell us, what be an habacus if it ain't your name what is also Habacus?'
Before Mary could reply Ann Gower asked, 'What day o' the month and year ya born in, then, mister?'
The small, hairy creature thought for a moment, then decided to co-operate. 'April seven in the year o' our Lord, seventeen seventy-six or near enough, I reckons.' His voice had a cackle to it, his words sharp and fast and somewhat high-pitched like Chinese crackers going off in a bunch.
Ann Gower turned to Mary and whispered from the side of her mouth, 'Show lover boy, darlin'.'
'Lover boy, is it?' The little man had the most astonishing acuteness of hearing, for Mary had barely heard Ann's whisper herself.
Mary shrugged. She was manacled but the clamps were on either end of a good twelve inches of chain so that her hands were more or less free to work the abacus. She rested it on the side of the cart and instructed Ann to hold the abacus firmly. A moment later her twisted fingers began to fly in a clicking and clacking so rapid that the red and black beads slid across their wire runners faster than the eye could possibly follow them. After what seemed only a few minutes she stopped and read the beads.
'You been alive eighteen thousand, six 'undred and sixty-four days. You was borned on a Sunday.' Tapping the abacus, Mary added, 'That be what me abacus does, it counts things.'
'Ho, ho! We's got us a smart one 'as we? A Jack 'n a box what springs out above others! Well, Mary Habacus what's got an habacus what counts, pleased to meetcha, me name's Potbottom, Mister Tiberias Pot-bottom, that be the full complement o' me cartouches.' He spread his hands and grinned disarmingly. 'They calls me, 'The Scrapins'! Now can you imagine why that could possibly be, eh?' His head jerked enquiringly from one woman to another, waiting for the women in the cart to acknowledge him with a laugh or some sign of acquiescence. But no laughter or even a nod was forthcoming, for Mary sensed a trap and the others had held back, waiting for her reaction. She remained stony faced looking down at the diminutive creature on the dock.
All at once the bright eager to-and-fro of Potbottom's head ceased and he looked down at his scuffed and worn shoes. His head began to nod slowly as though it were coming to some sort of conclusion. His dark eyes moved to each of the women above him, lingering as though taking in all their details, as if, in his observance, he had suddenly learned much about them and what he found was of the utmost disappointment. His eyes came last to Mary and held her gaze as he spoke.
'Ha! What about leap years, then? Your habacus didn't count no leap years, now did it?' He pointed a sharp finger at Mary and jumped from one foot to the other. 'Ho, ho, habacus ain't such a clever Dick now is it?'
The female convicts all looked questioningly at Mary.
'What you takes me for, an idjit?' Mary sniffed. 'There be eleven in all, they's all counted, leap years and even this mornin's included in.'
The women in the cart clapped and yelled their approval and there was much rattling of chains and laughter at Mary's sharp rejoinder.
'Well, well, we'll soon see about this mornin' included in, won't we?' Potbottom said, his lips drawn to a tight line. 'Welcome aboard His Majesty's convict ship, Destiny II. Destiny be a good name,' he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the boat, 'for her gracious ladyship. You see, if you be o' the kind what trusts to destiny to supply yer needs, I is most pleased to inform you that you has got it exactly right! On board we supplies all the misery yer heart could desire, lashin's and lashin's o' the stuff, and, as well, we tops it up with despair, more of it than what you could possibly digest in one plain sailin'!'
Mary laughed nervously and the others followed, a titter ran through the cart.
'Oh, now we laughs, does we?' Potbottom's eyes narrowed. 'I knows not how many days you has been alive on Gawd's sweet earth, Mary Habacus, but I makes you this most solemn promise.' Potbottom's eyes held Mary's. 'The worse ones hasn't yet come for you!' He paused and gave her a malevolent smile. 'But they will. Oh deary me, yes! They will, they will!'
Tiberias Potbottom turned his back on them and hurried up the gangway, his short bandy legs making his shoulders jump from side to side, his long arms hanging loose, so that he lurched along very much like the monkey creature he so closely resembled. It was only then that they noticed that one shoulder was higher than the other, that there was a hump, though not overly large, resting behind it. Tiberias Potbottom was a hunchback.
'Blimey! Who'll be touchin' that one's hump for luck,' Mary exclaimed softly.
The women in the cart giggled and watched as Potbottom disappeared on to the deck above them. 'Jesus!' Ann Gower said in a loud whisper. 'Talk about 'ot an' cold! What were that all about?'
'Whatever it were, it ain't good news for me,' Mary sighed. She turned to one of the two turnkeys who'd escorted them on the trip down and who had just that moment returned from reporting to the ship's surgeon- superintendent, the already infamous Joshua Smiles. Neither of their guards had witnessed the exchange between the convict women and Potbottom, who'd brushed past them just as they'd reached the top of the gangway.
'Can you take off our irons now, Mr Burke, we be exceeding tired o' standin'?' Mary asked politely.
'Not till you 'as been counted and numbers taken,' Burke said. 'Sorry, that be regulations.'
A murmur of dissatisfaction came from the cart which caused the second of their guards to raise both hands and pat the air in front of him. 'Now, now, girls, you been good so far, don't you go spoilin' things now!' He smiled up at the women in the cart, 'Besides, Mr Potbottom, what be assistant to ship's surgeon, be 'ere soon enough to count and take your numbers.'
An hour later with the spring sunshine turned unseasonably hot and uncomfortable they still remained standing in the cart. The female convicts had no protection but for their mob caps, their ankles were swollen and painful from standing and their throats were parched for want of water. Many of the older women were close to swooning in the heat. They commenced to shouting, demanding and begging from all who mounted the gangway to release them from their chains and allow them to step down from the cart and into the shade cast by the ship's side. When they were ignored by the coming and going throng they cussed loudly, calling out obscenities. Finally
