gleeful warning to any who would promote a further mischief.
Mary was taken to the hospital and made to wash. Her uniform was stripped from her and she was given an old and tattered garment to wear. It had been washed soft, ready to be used as a rag, and so brought some comfort to her burning back. When her bloodstained uniform was returned to the mess a quarrel broke out among the whores, each of whom wanted to wash and repair it. Mary was then taken to the coal hole, the darkest and gloomiest part of the ship, where she was locked up with the supply of coal used in the vessel's kitchens.
There is nothing as destructive to the mind as complete darkness and silence. If there be a hell then eternal fire would come but a poor second to an eternity filled with complete solitude, for humans are gregarious creatures, in the main, and not designed to be alone. Soon the will to live breaks down and the mind ceases to see things rational and coherent; instead, nightmares grow out of a darkness populated with beasts and demons and hob-goblins with sharpened teeth and long treacherous claws.
It was most fortunate therefore that a prison guard, bringing Mary's ration of water and ship's biscuit, took pity on her and agreed to bring her abacus to her. Had it not been for this, the week spent in the coal hole might well have robbed Mary of her sanity. In the pitch darkness she would work the beads until her fingers were raw. Her mind grew to memorise the numbers of red and black upon the wire rails, and she spent hours making the most bizarre calculations to keep her mental condition sharp. She knew the height and width and circumference of the dome of St Paul's, and worked out the number of bricks it would have taken to build it. She knew the width and the length of the Mall and estimated the size of a single cobblestone, whereupon she worked out the number of these contained in the entirety of this regal way. It was with this kind of foolishness that she remained fully possessed of her wits in the darkness and silence of the dreadful hole into which she had been cast.
Sometimes Mary's hands became too painful and she was forced to leave her abacus alone. When she did so, her mind became filled with the spectre of Tiberias Pot-bottom, who now possessed her luck.
Mary was philosophical about the fifteen gold sovereigns he had stolen from her, but this was not the case with the medal. Potbottom's wearing of Ikey's talisman was an abomination. The usurping of her future luck was not a robbery but a snatching of her very soul. The legend inscribed upon it, 'I shall never surrender', was a determination she now regarded as endowed to her along with the luck it possessed. Mary told herself that without this talisman, her life upon the Fatal Shore was most surely doomed. She had convinced herself that without the determination it engendered and the luck it brought as a consequence she would be helpless. It also concerned her that in wearing the medal, Potbottom's own determination, the very power and potency of his evil, was greatly enhanced.
Mary truly believed that what had befallen her on board ship was simply a continuation of her previous life. The Destiny II was still in her mind English territory, thus resulting in English circumstance. The luck Ikey's talisman contained was hers for a foreign land and remained Ikey's until she reached her destination. Lying in the darkness of the coal hole, Mary became obsessed with the urgency of retrieving the medal, for while Potbottom wore it about his neck, Ikey, wherever he might be, went unprotected. Furthermore, if she arrived in Hobart without the blessing of the golden charm, she would have no reason to live, her dreadful fate having been already sealed.
Mary had a naturally observant nature and now as she lay in the dark she tried to think of all the daily movements of Potbottom about the ship. She earnestly contemplated his habits, those small things which appeared consistent in his daily routine. Alas, she found that, in contrast to his master, he was most gregarious, seldom alone or still for one minute at a time and not at all consistent. At muster, in the hospital or during bloody pusover he was always amidst a group and the centre of attention. Into this daily routine Mary silently followed Potbottom in her mind, but never could she discover a time when he was on his own.
And then she remembered that during her two days in the prison hospital the hatch was unlocked an hour earlier than that of the prison itself to allow Potbottom to enter. It was his habit to send the convict night assistant and the hospital assistant up on board while, on behalf of the surgeon-superintendent, he made an inventory of the medication in the small dispensary.
In fact, although this could not be known to Mary, what he was occupied in doing each morning was removing and packing the physic and medication prescribed and written in the ledger at the previous day's sick call or at the weekly bloody pusover. He would carefully remove from the dispensary the amounts prescribed for each treatment in the surgeon's ledger, packing the unused medicine into a small leather portmanteau. Then he would repair to his cabin where the contents of the case would be added, each medication to its own type, to the stock already accumulated on the voyage.
This contraband medicine, intended for the sick on board, would eventually be sold for a most handsome profit when the ship berthed in Rio de Janeiro. Potbottom also saw to it that some small part of the profit was paid to the hospital matron, a professed Christian, who had a most remarkable propensity to see no evil when to be blind was to her benefit.
It was a foolproof method, for when the medical supplies remaining were checked by the authorities in Hobart Town against the surgeon-superintendent's prescription ledger and subtracted from the amount placed on board at the port of embarkation, the amounts would tally perfectly. If any convict should complain to the authorities that she had not received medication for an illness, the hospital matron would swear that this was a lie. Furthermore, if a member of the crew or prison staff required attention while on board they would be treated most generously with whatever physic was required, so that they would readily testify to the probity of the ship's surgeon and the diligence of its hospital matron.
The dispensary was situated in a small cabin behind a bulkhead at the end of the hospital and Mary, while recovering from the attack on her in the prison, had observed that Potbottom entered it alone each morning, leaving the door slightly ajar. He worked there unobserved and, at the same time, allowed sufficient air into the tiny room which lacked a porthole of its own.
Mary tried to recall every detail of Potbottom's early morning entry. He had never spoken, which was unusual, for his busy cackle was as much a part of him as his quick, nervous movements. He was a prattler of exceptional talent. Yet he would enter the hospital silently and, Mary now realised, in a most agitated state fumble the key into the lock of the dispensary as though he were on a most urgent mission.
However, when some time later he emerged he would be his usual vile self, cackling and quick-tongued, small cruel eyes sparkling as he stood at her berth to say something unpleasant. He would leave the hospital in a fine mood, delighted with himself, eager to embrace the task of making those around him afraid of the consequences of doing anything which might displease him.
Mary's berth had been almost beside the door of the dispensary and on the second morning in hospital Potbottom had entered in an even more agitated state than usual. His arms were clasped tightly across his chest and he shivered as though he were very cold. His tiny claws scratched with great irritation at the topmost part of his arms. Mary observed that his lips were cracked and without colour, a thin line of white spit bubbles stretching the length of his mouth. Feigning sleep, she watched as his hands fumbled to unlock the door to the dispensary. In his haste to enter he left the door somewhat more ajar than usual, and by craning her neck Mary could see into the tiny cupboard-sized cabin.
Potbottom, his hands trembling, quickly mixed an amount of raw opium in a small glass container into which he poured what looked to be a syrup from its distinctive blue bottle. Mary was most familiar with opium, it having come close in the past to taking her life. The syrup she took to be laudanum, a mixture of opium dissolved in alcohol, used by prostitutes on the way down. Only those most heavily addicted would think to use more opium in their laudanum, as she herself had done in that darkest time of her life.
Mary watched as the surgeon's assistant hastily swallowed the liquid and then waited, with eyes closed, for it to hit. She knew exactly how he felt. The jangled nerves suddenly straightened, the tension relaxed and his mind and thoughts once more collected. The muscles of his arms and legs no longer jumped and as his craving body received the devil's tonic the dreadful itching under his skin mercifully melted away.
Mary knew at once that Tiberias Potbottom was a helpless victim of the oriental poppy and, judging from the amount of opium grains he'd mixed with the laudanum, he was greatly dependent upon its effects and well accustomed to its constant use.
As Mary lay in the darkness of the coal hole a plan slowly began to emerge in her mind. She prayed that some small part of all her future luck, the golden luck which now dangled around the little monkey's scrawny neck, might be granted to her on credit. Her prayers were directed at whomsoever cared to hear them, whether God or the devil, she didn't much care.
