flesh, the fiery pitch sticking long enough to arm or leg or back or head to burn savagely through the skin or scalp and deep into the flesh, so that they were permanently scarred from its effect.
On the afternoon of the second day Ann Gower, maddened by the circumstances below decks, attacked Mary, accusing her of causing the calamitous situation they found themselves in. Mary had been sitting alone in a corner against the bulkhead, clasping her legs together with her head resting on her knees when Ann Gower approached and stood over her.
'It were you, not us! It were you the sod wanted!' Ann began. 'All along it be you givin'
'im lip! In the wagon 'an all, when we first come. Then on an' on an' on, always makin' it 'ard for us. You what thinks you is better than a whore. Ya think 'cause ya can read that ya be clever, that ya knows everyfink! Well let me tell ya, all ya knows is 'ow to make trouble for all of us wif that fuckin' gob o' yers! Now Potbottom's gettin'
'is own back and it's us what's sufferin'! It were you, Mary Abacus, what done this to us and I reckons you 'as to pay!' Ann Gower turned and faced the others. 'What do ya say, girls, the bitch 'as gotta pay for our misery!' She indicated the prison around them. 'For this!'
As Ann Gower spoke Mary's hands were under her skirt, for she was one of the very few who had not removed her clothes, which hung soaking from her body. Suspended from a string about her waist was a small bundle of cloth concealed in her flannel undergarment which contained her brass talons. Mary's twisted fingers worked frantically at the knot, but it was too tightly bound to open without some persistent plucking and pulling. Long before it had yielded Ann Gower's right hand swept down and knocked Mary's mob cap from her head. She gripped a fistful of hair in her left hand and pulled Mary squealing to her feet. Balling her hand into a fist, she struck Mary a violent blow which broke her nose.
At the sight of the blood spurting from Mary's nose the other women seemed to go berserk. Howling, they rushed at her, tearing and pulling and pushing her to the deck. They kicked and jumped on Mary and drove their fists into her face and body, raking her with their nails in a furious frenzy of fighting.
So intense were the screams and caterwauling and hysteria that the hatches were hurriedly opened and three guards and Potbottom rushed below. At the sight of Potbottom the women turned like a pack of howling wolves and made towards him. The two prison guards were barely able to retreat and hold them off sufficiently long for Potbottom to beat a hasty retreat, his tiny bow legs propelling him as fast as they could carry him back on to the deck.
More guards arrived together with the prison matron and two of her assistants, and it took fully ten minutes before any order was restored and they were able to gain control of the hysterical women.
When the matron came upon Mary she lay unconscious, one of her purpled and twisted hands clasped tightly into a ball and resting on her bloodstained breast. She was carried to the hospital where she was washed and her wounds dressed, though every attempt to open her left hand failed. Her fingers seemed to have clamped shut with the shock of the beating she had taken, and had the appearance of the claws of a great bird of prey pulled tightly inwards as though in death.
Mary regained consciousness an hour later and took water from the matron which she drank greedily, asking for more in a hoarse whisper affected by her cut and swollen lips. She was still groggy and not fully possessed of her wits, unsure where she was and with both her eyes closed unable to see the woman who nursed her.
Mary was awakened by someone shaking her roughly and then she heard the cackle of Potbottom's voice, 'Wake her, matron, she has slumbered enough! Wake her at once, this be no inn for gentlefolks!'
Mary attempted to open her eyes and while the right eye still remained tightly closed the left had improved somewhat and she could see with a measure of clarity. Potbottom sat beside her bunk, perched on a stool with his hands clasped to his breast. He seemed to be positively shaking with excitement. One hand suddenly jerked out and a finger prodded into the side of Mary's ribs. A sharp pain shot into her lungs where the ribs had been broken. Potbottom's hand shot back to be clasped again by the other in their former position. 'Wake up! Wake up at once! Say somethin'!'
'Mornin' Mary said through her cracked and bulbous lips, and then added, 'Miszer Pobothum, sir,' in a voice slurred and hardly above a whisper.
'That's better, much better, you'll soon be well again, me dear.' He dry-soaped his hands. 'Well enough for bread 'n water and a bit o' loverly solitude in the coal hole!' he cackled. 'Guilty o' startin' a riot we is.' He clucked his tongue several times. 'Now that be most wicked. Mr Smiles don't like that, no he don't, indeed we don't tolerate no riot on Gawd's ship.'
Mary groaned and lifted the hand which was still fisted shut and Tiberias Potbottom gasped and reeled back, thinking she might hit him, though she barely had strength sufficient to lift her arm. 'No!' Mary rasped and tried to lift and shake her head. But the pain of it was too much to bear, and she winced and her head fell back and her hand fell limply by her side.
'No, says you! Yes, says I! Startin' a riot, now that be a most serious offence what will earn a floggin' if I be not mistaken. Surgeon-superintendent don't like that, no he don't, I'll vouch for that, not like it, not one little bit!'
Mary tried once again to move her head. 'No!' she managed again. She was suddenly aware of a strange sound and at the same time the vessel shuddered and then rolled slightly. 'Wind?' Mary whispered.
'Oh yes, wind! Glorious wind! Gawd's breath is back with us, Mary Habacus!' Tiberias Potbottom said triumphantly then pushed his ugly little monkey face close to Mary's. 'Gawd is not mocked!' he said, spraying her face with his fierce spittle. 'You have been punished and He has restored His precious breath to us!'
Tears ran from Mary's swollen eyes and she drew blood as she bit her top lip in an attempt to stop them. She did not want to show her physical pain, nor her confusion and agony of mind to the creature perched on the stool beside her.
'What's this then?' Potbottom asked suddenly.
Mary made no attempt to look, thinking him to be making comment over her distress. Instead she kept her lumpy eyes closed fighting back the tears that threatened to grow into a desperate sobbing. They were stupid tears, tears that showed Potbottom that he'd won, that he'd broken her spirit, tears for the past and the present and the future, tears that washed over her awful life.
'What be this I'm holdin', eh!' Potbottom asked again, and this time his demanding impatient tone caused Mary to open her one good eye. Tiberias Potbottom held up a prisoner's purse. 'Never know what you'll find when you looks, does you, me dear?'
Mary's hand went instinctively to her cunny but she knew before she reached it that her prisoner's purse was no longer hidden there. The brass tube Tiberias Potbottom held contained her fifteen sovereigns and Ikey's precious Waterloo medallion and chain and Mary began to sob uncontrollably.
'Shall we see what we's got, then?' Potbottom said gleefully. His small hands twisted the brass cap, removed and upended it, tapping it into the centre of his palm. 'Very curious,' he said, 'it don't have nothin' in it!' He tapped the tube once more in the same manner then held it with the open end facing Mary. Potbottom raised his dark, bushy eyebrows, his tiny black eyes shining. 'A pleasurin' device is it? A poor convict woman's comfort for the dark lonely nights at sea?' Potbottom shook his head and clucked his tongue several times. 'I don't think Mr Smiles will take kindly to such a device. Not kindly at all!' He replaced the cap and, leaning over Mary, he placed the small metal tube on her chest. As he did so, Ikey's medallion fell from within his linen shirt and dangled on its chain directly above Mary's breasts. Then, without a further glance at the hapless, sobbing Mary, he scuttled out of the hospital, leaving her to contemplate the loss of everything she possessed in the world.
Mary had secretly dared to hope that her life might change, that despite the hell of Van Diemen's Land she would survive and that something good, no matter how small, might come of it. Now she knew that she had been deluding herself all her life, in truth, the flame of her existence had been blown out the very moment she had been born. As she lay in the prison hospital Mary craved emptiness, to feel nothing, to walk upon the earth as a shadow until death came as yet another misadventure upon her senseless life. Her past filled her up, taking possession of every corner of her soul to make her life a dark, repugnant experience. Where others might have craved Christian salvation, Mary asked only for emptiness, for all feeling to be taken from her. She wanted neither God nor the devil, but what lay between. Without feeling, she told herself, she could continue to exist; with it, she wanted only to die.
Soon her tears dried up. They were pointless. To cry was to mourn and to mourn was to care and caring was what had always destroyed her. She cursed her mouth and its ability to find trouble; others knew their place and
