Mary sighed deeply as Charlotte began groping for her breast under her dress. She had little milk left now, and each time the rations were cut further she was fearful Charlotte would become sick as so many others had.
It was the very young and the very old who were dying in ever-increasing numbers each week. The hospital building was always full now, the path to the cemetery so well used that a new funeral wasn’t remarked on any longer.
Shouting and chatter outside made Mary start. Through the window they had plaited with twigs in place of glass, she could see the sun was very low, and Will should have been home by now. She stood up, and holding Charlotte in her arms, went to the door.
The commotion was coming from further along the beach closer to the main camp. Mary thought she saw a glimpse of Will’s blond hair, so wrapping a piece of cloth around Charlotte, she went to look.
She had gone no more than two hundred yards when she saw Sarah.
Her once pretty face was gaunt. Her strawberry-blond hair was matted and filthy, her blue eyes were dulled by drink and she’d lost her two front teeth in a fight. Her slop dress still had bloodstains from the birth of her child and it was split on one side, showing her scrawny thigh.
‘Your Will’s been caught stealing,’ she called out. ‘He’ll be for it now.’
Mary’s heart quickened. She had of course eagerly eaten the fish Will brought home, and to help him remain undetected she had made the sacking bag to put them in. He hung this on a hook on the boat’s side below the water-line to retrieve later after the rest of the catch had been weighed and taken to the stores.
It had appeared to be a foolproof plan, but Mary guessed that Will had been stealing more than he told her, selling the surplus off to others or exchanging it for goods.
‘My Will’s no thief,’ Mary said sharply. She couldn’t look upon it as theft – after all, fish were free to anyone who could catch them.
‘I don’t think Captain Phillip will see it that way,’ Sarah said, her grin a touch malicious. ‘He’ll say you’ve been robbing the rest of us.’
Mary looked at her former friend coolly. ‘Will’s one of the few men here who provide anything for us to eat,’ she said. ‘But for him most of us would be too weak to be nasty.’
It hurt that Sarah had turned against her. Mary could not forget how close they’d been on the Dunkirk, and that Sarah had helped her with Charlotte’s birth on the voyage. But it had never been a one-sided friendship. Mary had always made sure she saved food for Sarah, comforted her in the aftermath of the rape, and even gave her some of the fish Will got. But perhaps the horror of the rape had killed off something inside Sarah.
All the way into the town, people called out to Mary. A few, like James Martin, Jamie Cox and Samuel Bird, Will’s closest friends, offered help and words of sympathy, but from the others it was mostly spiteful remarks. Mary remembered how back in the early days everyone would have stuck together if something like this had happened. But hunger and deprivation had changed them all. There was no sense of honour any more, people would peach on almost anyone in return for drink or extra food. And they took pleasure in seeing anyone they considered favoured brought down.
Mary kept her head up and ignored them all, but her insides were turning over with a combination of fear and hunger. The town didn’t consist of much, just two rows of squalid little huts for the convicts, slightly larger ones set further back for the Marines and their families, and the guarded store-sheds. But Mary’s eyes were drawn to the gallows. She remembered only too well the warning that anyone found stealing food would receive no mercy.
Watkin Tench came out from behind one of the store-sheds, surprising Mary for she’d thought he was away at Rose Hill, a new settlement inland where the soil was more fertile. Tench had been put in charge of it, and they were building a new Government House here too.
‘Mary!’ he exclaimed, his tanned lean face etched in concern. ‘I assume you’ve been told?’
Even he, who had always been so elegant and spruce, was looking worn. His boots were rarely highly polished any more, his red jacket was threadbare and his breeches stained. But the compassion was still there in his dark eyes.
Mary nodded. ‘Is it true?’ she asked.
‘Caught red-handed,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m afraid there’s little I can do to help him, however much I wish I could. The Governor will have to treat him just like anyone else caught stealing food.’
‘They won’t hang him, will they?’ Mary felt faint now, and her voice was little more than a whisper.
Tench glanced round to check who was watching, then moved closer to her. ‘I certainly hope not,’ he said. ‘It would be folly to lose any of the skilled men.’
His first reaction to the news as he rode in from Rose Hill had been anger at Will. Will was more fortunate than any other prisoner, he did a job he enjoyed, he had privileges and a decent hut. And he had Mary for a wife. Tench knew in his heart that Will hadn’t taken fish just for himself and his family, he’d been taking a great deal and trading it for rum. This incensed him, for it was not only breaking down the very fabric of the community, but cheating Mary too; no doubt she was oblivious to how much her husband needed drink.
‘Could I speak to Captain Phillip?’ Mary asked in desperation.
Tench hardly knew what to say. He certainly couldn’t bring himself to hammer home what kind of man Will really was. ‘Captain Phillip has probably already made his decision,’ he said after a couple of moments. Then, seeing the terror in Mary’s eyes, he weakened. ‘But perhaps if he saw you with Charlotte in your arms, he might be persuaded to change it.’
‘Please take me to him,’ Mary pleaded, and she reached out and clutched at his arm. ‘Will doesn’t deserve to die just for feeding his family. Surely any man would do the same?’
Tench looked at her for a moment. There had been so many times when he wished he had never suggested Will as a husband for her, for he knew now that Will was weak, easily led and very boastful. He guessed Mary felt mortified each time it got back to her that Will had claimed they weren’t legally married. Or that he intended to be on the next ship home when his time was up.
He wished too that he could get Mary out of his mind. He had hoped that being sent to Rose Hill would help. But now, faced with her distress, he knew the feelings he had for her hadn’t abated at all. ‘Any man would do the same for you,’ he said, putting his hand over hers briefly.
Captain Phillip’s house was some distance away from the town, up on a hill. With its two floors and veranda along the front, it stood out as being the residence of the most important man in the new colony, but this was not because it was grand, only that it had an appearance of sturdy permanence in comparison to all the other building work.
Mostly everything else was made of clay and wood, for even though there was plenty of stone around, and a brick-making kiln too, no lime to make mortar could be found anywhere. Mary, like many of the women, had been set to collect sea shells, then grind them up and burn them to make lime. She supposed all those many hundreds of bucketfuls she’d collected had barely made enough for the foundations of Phillip’s house, so it would be years and years before the real town he envisaged, complete with a church, shops and paved streets, could be built.
As Mary followed Tench up the hill, she held her head high and ignored the coarse remarks and stares. Will had always claimed that no one would ever peach on him, but that was yet another of his failings, a stupidly vain belief that he was special. He’d probably bragged about the fish to someone, and it hadn’t occurred to him that when jealousy reared its head, friendship and loyalty vanished.
Mary had to wait out on the veranda while Tench went inside the house to get permission for her to speak to Phillip. Charlotte was wailing with hunger now, and Mary jogged her soothingly in her arms as she looked back down the hill towards the town.
Darkness had fallen on the way there, and for once the town looked pretty, lit only by the many campfires
. Mary could see the silhouettes of women cooking on them, and the flames highlighted trees and cast a twinkling orange glow on to the sea beyond.
She sighed, for although she always told anyone who asked that she would be on the next ship back to England when her sentence was up, she had grown to quite like this strange new land. Of course she hated what it stood for, a place where all the degenerate, desperate and wicked people from England were dumped. But it had some good points. The heat of the summer was sometimes too much, but there was always the warm sea to take a dip in. She loved the sandy beaches. Winter was nothing like as severe as at home, and however peculiar-looking most of the trees were, she liked their pungent aroma. Then there were the wonderful birds. To see flocks of the grey ones with pink bellies flying brought tears to her eyes. There were also the sulphur-coloured cockatoos that sat up in the trees squawking out what sounded like insults. Birds here were every colour of the rainbow, so vivid she could hardly believe they were real. She still hadn’t seen the animal Tench called a kangaroo, or the big flightless bird; perhaps they were too timid to come close to people and she’d need to go further inland.
But whether or not she much preferred the land to which she belonged, Mary was a realist. Hunger back in England was exactly the same as hunger here, except it was better to be hungry and warm than hungry and cold. Unless a miracle happened, she would never amount to anything more than a servant in England. Here she stood a chance. When she was free she could claim land of her own, and the challenge to build something out of nothing appealed to her.
Often at night she thought about having a few animals, growing vegetables and fruit, and sitting on a porch in the evenings with Charlotte and Will, gazing at their land. Will had always pooh-poohed such ideas, he wanted to live in a fishing village with a tavern at the centre of it. But as she’d often retorted, he could build his own tavern here.
‘You can come in now, Mary,’ Tench said softly behind her. ‘I have to warn you, Captain Phillip is very angry and disappointed. I don’t think you can sway him from hanging Will.’
Mary knew Tench would have done his best for her and Will, for even the hardships here, which were almost as bad for the officers as for the convicts, hadn’t changed his caring nature. Mary still had that same yearning for him, which marrying Will hadn’t made go away. In a year here she had seen many officers who were once above taking convict women into their beds, succumb to the temptation. And in her heart she knew that if Tench was to weaken, she would go all out to be with him, regardless of her marriage.
But she knew somehow that Tench never would. He cared for her, she saw it in his eyes every time he stopped off at her hut or looked for her amongst a group of women, and in the tender way he petted Charlotte. Just knowing he cared for her helped. It was something good to dream about at night, a reason to keep herself clean and neat, another reason to stay alive.
It also gave her the courage to face Captain Phillip, and the same defiant streak which had prevented her from crying out when she heard her own death sentence, rose in her as she marched into the house. She didn’t intend to watch Will hang while she still had breath in her body.
Captain Arthur Phillip was seated at his desk, a pen in his hand, as Mary came into the room.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, sir,’ she began, and bobbed a little curtsy.
Rumours went around the town that Phillip’s house was very impressive inside, stuffed with fine furniture and silver plate. But to Mary’s surprise it wasn’t even as grand as the rector’s house in Fowey. He had his desk, the chair he was sitting on, and there were a couple of armchairs by the fireplace, but apart from a silver-framed picture of a lady who was almost certainly his wife, there was little else, not even a rug on the bare boards.
Captain Phillip wasn’t much to look at either, fifty, slender and small, all the hair on the top of his head gone. But he did have lovely dark eyes, and Mary thought he wore his naval uniform well.
‘I suppose you’ve come to plead for your husband?’ he said coldly.
‘No, I’ve come to plead for everyone in this colony,’ Mary said without any hesitation. ‘For if you hang Will, they will surely all die, yourself included.’
He looked startled by such a claim, his dark eyes widening.
‘Without the fish he brings in we will starve,’ Mary continued, hitching Charlotte higher into her arms and willing her not to cry. ‘There is no one else as skilful as Will. If you hadn’t taken away his rights to take a few fish home for us, this would never have happened.’
‘That couldn’t be helped, it was an emergency situation,’ Phillip said tersely, irritated that she had the audacity to question his orders. ‘And your husband hadn’t just taken a couple of fish. He had a great deal. He has been bartering them for provisions stolen from the stores. Each time someone steals from there, it leaves even less for the rest of the colony. It is an extremely grave offence.’
‘Wouldn’t you do the same if your wife and family were facing death?’ Mary said, glancing at the picture of his wife.
‘No, I would not,’ he said firmly. ‘The provisions are rationed fairly. I only have the same as you.’
Mary doubted that, but didn’t dare say so.
‘So what good will hanging Will do?’ she asked. ‘I’ll be left to bring up this child alone, the people who steal from the stores will still do it, and every one of us will be even hungrier.’
Phillip looked at Mary, noting that she was every bit as ragged as the other convict women, but that she was clean. Even her bare feet were only dusty, not filthy as he’d observed many of the other women’s were.
Lieutenant Tench had often spoken of this woman, whom he considered intelligent and forthright, and claimed had been a good influence on the other women on the Charlotte. There hadn’t been any complaints about her behaviour, in fact he had himself commented on the Bryants being model prisoners.
‘Go home now,’ he said. ‘He will be tried tomorrow. Tonight he stays in the guard-house.’
Mary moved towards the door, but turned before leaving and gave Phillip a penetrating stare. He saw deep fear and desperation in her eyes as she held the child out to him.
‘Please, sir,’ she pleaded. ‘Look at my child. She is bonny and healthy now, but without Will she may not stay that way. I’ll make sure Will never goes wrong again. Please, for the love of God and this child, spare him!’
She left then, slinking off into the night like a cat.
Phillip sat for a while deep in thought. The woman was right. Hanging Bryant would bring the spectre of starvation even closer.
‘Damn those fools in England,’ he muttered. ‘Where are the provisions asked for? How can I be expected to make this colony self-sufficient when I haven’t been given even the most basic equipment or men with the right skills?’
He had deep anxieties about almost every facet of this experiment: the infertile soil, the fast-dwindling stores, the behaviour of the felons, and the natives. It was predictable that the felons wouldn’t pitch in and help themselves. They were townsfolk in the main, and they were more familiar with a jug of ale than a plough. They had no morals – dozens of the women had given birth or were expecting a child, and they moved from one partner to another without a qualm. They’d rather stand about chatting than work, would rather steal vegetables than grow them. Phillip could understand them, they had after all been sent here for good reason. But he was very disappointed in the natives.
Phillip had believed that if they were treated with kindness and friendliness, they would reciprocate. Sadly, this didn’t seem to be the case – over the last few months several convicts working away from the camp had been brutally murdered. He still wanted to find a way to communicate with these people, to discover where the big rivers and fertile land lay, to learn about the native animals and birds, but all his efforts had come to nothing.
In truth, by the first anniversary of the colony, Phillip was a very worried man. He had the settlemen
t at Sydney Cove, the one in Norfolk Island, and now Rose Hill too, but the convicts showed little inclination to reform, the Marines grumbled constantly, and the situation with the natives appeared to be getting worse rather than better. Without more food and medicine, the death toll would rise even more steeply. He found it hard to sleep at night for anxiety, and he couldn’t see an end to it.
Mary bit into her knuckles as Judge Collins stood up in the guard-house to tell Will what his punishment was to be. As she had expected, someone had informed on Will, and she guessed it to be Joseph Pagett, a man who had been on both the Dunkirk and the Charlotte. He had shown signs of jealousy during the voyage, and she could recall him giving Will a baleful look the day they were married.
Charles White, the surgeon from the Charlotte, had spoken up for Will, but even so Mary was sure he was to be hanged. She knew Will thought so too, for his face was drained of all colour, and he was biting his lip and trying very hard not to tremble.
‘I sentence you to a hundred lashes,’ Collins said. ‘And to be deprived of the direction of fishing and the boat. Also to be turned out of the hut you are now in, along with your wife and family.’
Will shot a glance at Mary, his face registering some relief, but anxiety at how she would take the loss of the hut.
Mary couldn’t think about that now. While she was relieved Will wasn’t to be hanged, and 100 lashes was a light punishment compared to some she’d witnessed, any flogging was still terrible, and she felt her stomach heave with nausea.
‘Take him away for punishment,’ Collins said.
All the prisoners were rounded up to watch Will’s flogging, even the children. They took their places in a semicircle before the big wooden triangle, which was manned on either side by a Marine drummer. In front of the triangle stood the Marine who was to administer the flogging. He had stripped down to his shirt and was already wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, for it was yet another very hot day. In his other hand he held the cat-o’-nine-tails, each strand tarred and knotted.