Ade Grant - The Mariner

GOVERNOR ARTHUR PHILIP CLENCHED A handkerchief tightly against his nose, yet still the stench prevailed. It stormed his nasal cavity as an invading force, routing resistance, exploiting all weaknesses. He’d known pestilence before; the camps of Sydney Cove were rife with the stink of disease, yet here, aboard this ship, the fumes were amplified to an almost spiritual plateau. No earthly cause could create such potency, at least none he’d ever known.

His right hand man, Wandsworth, was busy retching air; the contents of his stomach, just as revolted as he, were unwilling to leave the safety of his innards. The poor man would right himself, swallow what phlegm he had as if to form a plug in his throat and then, with tremendous vigour and persistence, rub his fleshy face, trying to attain some semblance of the professional administrator he’d been just a half-hour before. The charade never lasted for long; soon he was back convulsing in the corner.

Philip’s presence had been requested shortly after the grim ship docked. The hapless inspecting officer, a skinny runt of a man named Smith, now waited on-hand, his face as blank as night water.

The Neptune, one of a small fleet of convict ships, departed Portsmouth on the 19th of January. Five months later little of her cargo remained, that cargo being four hundred men and eighty women, each and every one forced to endure a torment beyond comparison.

The governor asked after the Neptune’s master, his voice low through shock and muffled by handkerchief.

“Donald Traill, Sir.”

“I want him arrested.”

A fly buzzed towards Philip. He instinctively ducked, not wanting to be touched by something that had existed in this hell, something that had grown fat by profiting from the misery of those ensnared within.

“I’m afraid that won’t be — huuurrgh — possible, sir. The company was paid to bring each passenger here. The — urrrmmmph — contract didn’t stipulate they needed to survive… There’s no… I mean…” Wandsworth dabbed his lips despite the lack of spittle upon them. “They haven’t broken any rules, sir!”

As if revelling in their legal loop-hole, the Neptune’s crew had slaughtered those in their charge. Smith’s first estimation was that at least a third had died from disease, malnutrition and abuse. The rest, the ‘survivors’, held onto life like drying sand.

The governor turned to the inspecting officer, too horrified to be angry. “What happened here?”

Smith’s moon eyes swivelled with unease, yet his businesslike tone remained stoic. “Scurvy, dysentery, typhoid fever, even a breakout of smallpox. Malnutrition also appears to have been quite rife. Before their diseases could finish the task, many seem to have simply starved to death.”

As he spoke his eyes were drawn to the nearest corpse. It was chained to the floor, flesh yellow and brittle. Whoever the man had been, death was the only release he’d enjoyed from his shackles; dried excrement caked his waist and pooled beneath.

“Are you telling me they ran out of food?”

Smith ran his tongue over his lips and his left hand trembled, yet still his voice remained steady. “No sir, it seems they just didn’t distribute it. There’s plenty still in storage.”

Wandsworth muttered a silent prayer, shaking his head at the rampant barbarism.

“I’ve never seen a convict ship built so… cruelly efficient,” Philip said. “No space spared.”

“No sir, they’re not normally like this. The Neptune was a slave ship initially, transported Negroes to the Americas. Hence the need to pack ‘em in, sir.” Smith spoke with pride at knowing such trivia.

A thought penetrated the governor’s shocked state. “Didn’t you say women were aboard?”

“Yes sir, around eighty.”

“Have you interviewed any?”

“Yes sir.”

“What was their account?”

Smith hesitated. “Well… they are whores after all.”

Philip gritted his teeth. “I didn’t ask you their crime. What did they tell you?”

“Widespread reports of rape. Accusations against the crew and captain. Also… humiliating punishments, being stripped naked and the like. One woman threw herself overboard in an attempt to take her own life, rather than suffer any further.”

“Did she succeed?”

“Oh yes of course, sir.”

The governor looked about the room, a testament to the truth in the inspecting officer’s words. This particular cabin was horribly cramped, and yet forty men had been kept here for five months, unable to move, barely able to breathe through the muggy air. Five months of hell. He shook his head in disbelief. “Starvation, rapes, humiliation—”

“Whippings too, sir. Lots of floggings took place on the top deck. The captain’s daughter was well known to this lot. I would guess the punishment was dished out with relish.”

The ‘captain’s daughter’ was the cat ‘o’ nine tails, a cotton whip of nine strands that inflicted parallel wounds, the scourge of disobedient sailors throughout the British navy. As if to prove his accusations, Smith pulled up the shirts of several nearby corpses. The first attempt proved nothing, as he pulled the garment back a rotten layer of skin came apart from the friction, sliding across the corpse like greased paper. Beneath, foetid flesh turned liquid began to flow onto the floor. Smith quickly pulled the shirt back down to mop up the mess, whilst the governor looked away.

Lifted shirts on fresher corpses revealed scars so complex they appeared like weaved parchment.

“Tell me, Smith. Have you ever seen anything like this?” Philip gestured to the scene before them.

“Yes sir.”

“Really? When was that?”

“When I was a boy, sir. In church… someone showed me a picture of Hell.”

The survivors of the Neptune were quickly taken to the camp’s makeshift hospital. All were horribly wasted, their flesh tight about their bones. Most were too ill to move, whilst all were completely infested with lice, which crawled sluggishly about their scalp and groin. Convicts told tales of ritual torture, sadistic in tone, the guards taking great pleasure in the cruelties they bestowed.

The governor oversaw the unloading, giving Wandsworth time to search for any legal means to bring retribution against Donald Traill and his crew, each of whom Philip refused to meet until his assistant reported. When the summary was finally submitted, it made disappointing reading.

With the law failing to aid the dignity of the convicts, Philip instead saw to their physical condition, personally donating what little fruit he had in his personal stock to bring relief to a handful of scurvy-ridden. He grimly watched as one bit into a lemon with vigour, only to have his fragile teeth snap off on impact. The poor creature sucked deeply on a mix of his own blood and citric juice, grimacing from both relief and exquisite pain.

As the last living convict stepped foot on soil, Philip turned to Wandsworth, more composed now he was out of the suffocating dark of the Neptune’s belly. “I want that ship put to sea. Not tomorrow, not later today, but now.”