with the green birds and the magic mountain,' she whispered to herself. 'The luck begins for me. Whatever may follow, I swear I shall never knowingly surrender it again.' As if it was a catechism, she repeated the words on the Waterloo medal, 'I shall never surrender'.
What followed was a most tedious induction by the muster master, who sat at a table further along the deck, a canvas canopy having been built above his bald head to keep the sun at bay. He was in a most churlish mood, having been at his task several hours, and snapped at the two convicts to step forward.
Each in turn was made to stand before him while he completed their records. They were fortunate to have missed the visit on board by the lieutenant-governor, for it proved a tedious and longwinded occasion. The prisoners had been paraded on board and made to stand a full hour on deck before the great man, seated on a handsome black stallion, arrived at the Government Wharf. Colonel George Arthur dismounted to a short, sharp roll from a kettle drum and a salute by a platoon of troopers in scarlet jackets. Ignoring the large crowd, he stepped into a longboat where he stood upright in a stiff military manner as he was rowed to the vessel.
Once on board he lost no time with pleasantries, nodding brusquely at the master and officers and grunting, 'Well done!' Then turning to Joshua Smiles he shook his hand in a cursory manner, acknowledging him with the single word, 'Surgeon!' This may well have been a deliberate attempt to exert his authority for Colonel George Arthur was short in stature and came not much beyond the belt of the surgeon-superintendent. Although his exceedingly short legs did not hinder him in a frock coat, whenever he appeared in full vice regal uniform or in a military deck-out his sword would drag along the ground as he walked. He was a man of rigid formality who would not entertain the possibility of a sword trimmed to less than regulation size, and so he always inspected his troops on horseback, selecting a large and fiery stallion for this purpose.
The governor tucked his small hands beneath the tail of his deep blue frock coat and commenced to stride up and down the assembled ranks of convicts.
'The hearts of every man and woman are desperately wicked and there is but one means of salvation, this be to have faith in the Lord and in Christ's crucifixion! You will attend church regularly and twice on Sunday, that is an order!'
All his entreaties and warnings were completed crisply and without prevarication, enumerating in exact detail what he regarded as both good and bad behaviour and giving a dozen examples of each. The ultimate result of good behaviour was the prospect of an early ticket of leave; of bad, the certain demise of the repeatedly offending prisoner.
Suddenly, Arthur stopped pacing and pointed across the narrow strip of water separating the ship from the shore, to beyond the crowds waiting on the wharf, and further still to some point imagined on the steep road leading up the hill.
'As you come ashore on the way to the Female Factory you will pass a gibbet. There you will observe that the two corpses which hang from it are male. We have not yet on this island hanged a woman by the neck, but that is not to say we cannot.' The governor paused for the effects of his words to sink in. 'I implore you all to look well how they hang and to take great care to ensure that your destiny upon this island does not converge with that of these two unfortunate wretches.' Colonel Arthur pulled himself to his full stature. 'I will have you know that since I assumed this office, fully one hundred and fifty prisoners have been capitally convicted and executed! I tell you now, I am a fair man, but there is no mercy for those who will not observe the spirit and the letter of the law in its most infinite detail!' Colonel Arthur cast a cold eye over the prisoners. 'Do not disappoint me, for I warn you, I am not a man who takes well to disappointment!'
Now, several hours after the governor had departed, Mary and Ann Gower were subjected to a most thorough interrogation by the muster master, no doubt occasioned by his fear of the governor himself. He was a small, balding, bespectacled man of a most pernickety clerical appearance with an abundance of grey hair sprouting from his ears, who scratched the answers to his sharp and practised questions in a large black book which bore upon its gold-embossed cover the title: Conduct Register.
It was this book which ruled the lives of every prisoner on the island and from whence came the expression, 'I am in his black books', to mean that things do not go well for someone.
Colonel Arthur fervently believed that every convict should be strictly accounted for and that the course of their lives, from the day of a prisoner's landing to that of their emancipation or death, should be written down. It was necessary therefore that every particular concerning a convict should be registered on their day of arrival and before they were taken ashore.
Mary's description was accordingly written down: Light straw coloured hair, green eyes-placed wide apart, scar on left cheek, brow high, hands badly deformed – black/blue in colour, height 5 feet and 2 inches, skin fair, face clear – no pox pitting, comely in appearance.
Next followed details on her crime and the events surrounding it, her non-marital status, date and place of birth, trade, next of kin and religion. Mary's literacy and numeracy were noted and both these tested and a sample of her handwriting added to the records. At the conclusion of her writing and numeracy test the muster master had said not unkindly, 'I 'ope you be'aves yourself, Prisoner Abacus. Orphans' school be most pleased to 'ave you, they would.'
'Orphan school?' Mary said, suddenly alert. 'There be a school 'ere for brats what's not owned?'
'Wesleyans, not Church of England. Don't know that much teachin' be done, though. I could put in a word?' He paused and then added, 'Got any,' he coughed lightly and grinned, 'gold… a sovereign perhaps?'
Mary sighed, 'Blimey! For a moment there I thought you was all 'eart, sir!'
The muster master shook his head, 'No 'eart to be found in these parts, only money! All the 'eart you wants if you can pay for it!' He cleared his throat and pursed his lips, suddenly conscious of his position, then he resumed writing.
'Be there a library, sir?' Mary asked.
The muster master looked up over the top of his spectacles. 'Mrs Deane runs the Circulating Library, books to hire. There's no books for convicts though, Mrs Deane don't 'ave no dealings with convicts.'
At the conclusion of the interrogation Mary was allocated a police number. Being kindly disposed to numbers she was delighted to find hers was No.7752. In her mind she immediately converted this to three 7s which she knew to be astonishingly good luck. Abacus, Mary – Female Convict, No.7752 became, together with the name of her ship, as affixed as her surname for the entire period of Mary's sentence.
Once these preliminaries were completed, Mary and Ann Gower were issued with new clothing. This consisted of a cotton gown of cheap, coarse material, a petticoat, jacket and apron, and a straw bonnet. Large yellow Cs were marked in a prominent place upon each article of clothing, though this was not necessary, the outfit itself bespoke a prisoner as surely as if it had been patterned with arrows. Those possessions they still had on board were taken from them though Mary was careful to conceal Ikey's medal in her prisoner's purse safely tucked away in its usual place. She was able to persuade the prisoner matron to allow her to retain her beloved abacus and her papier mache crown, but her precious copy of Gulliver's Travels was taken from her.
The two women were then placed in light irons and ferried ashore. Here they were met by a lone trooper and marched under guard up Macquarie Street to the Female Factory. On the way they passed the two men hanging from a gibbet, though Mary did not look. Her mind was filled with anticipation of a new land and she did not need so ready a reminder of where she had come from.
'Poor bastards!' Ann Gower spat. 'Looks like nothin'
'as changed.'
'No, Ann, you must see it differently. Everythin'
'as changed for us, everythin'!' Mary said.
The Female Factory was abutted to the male gaol forming a part of it and separated by a twelve foot wall. In all, it consisted of only four rooms. Two sleeping rooms had a total capacity of fifty women, thirty in one and twenty in the other, the sick room could accommodate another nine bodies and the work room another forty. At this point, the Factory was fully accommodated in terms most onerous to the comfortable accommodation of the inmates. With the addition of the women and children from the Destiny II, it was crowded almost to the point of suffocation. The prison yard could hold forty prisoners at one time, but could not be used at night for the cold and, besides, was at all times most dreadfully befouled.
Mary and Ann Gower soon found themselves placed without ceremony or further processing, beyond their names being registered, in the larger of the two sleeping rooms which contained fifty of their shipmates, all of whom, it became immediately apparent, were in a high state of excitement. They had been told that they would be
