Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

When night fell the gaolers pushed bread and small beer in through the shielding flap and left them to their own devices; he who needed to urinate or defecate was now provided with a bucket. More bread and small beer in the morning, then onward through that confusing racket, joined now by the cries of vendors and some very interesting stenches-rotten fish, rotten meat, rotten vegetables. The Bristolians stared at each other and smirked, while the rest looked a little sick.

For two nights they lay somewhere within the reaches of the great city, and on the afternoon of the third day-their twentieth since leaving Gloucester-someone yanked the shield away and let in the London daylight. In front of them lay a mighty river, grey and slick and bobbing with refuse; judging from the position of the sun, a pale and watery brilliance in the midst of a whitish sky, they had crossed the stream somewhere, and were now on its south bank. Woolwich, Richard decided. The wagon stood alongside a dock, to which was moored a dilapidated semblance of a ship which bore a barely discernible name on a bronze plate: Reception. Most appropriate.

The gaolers removed the chain which had linked them together and told Richard and Ike to get out. Legs a little shaky, they jumped down, their companions following.

“Remember, in two groups of six,” said Richard to Ike softly.

They were marched up a wooden gangplank and onto the vessel before anyone had a good opportunity to take in much of the river or what lay upon it. Once inside a room they were divested of their chains, manacles, belts and fetters, which were handed back to the Gloucester gaolers.

Boxes, sacks and bundles around them, they stood for some time aware of the guards at the door of this ruined wardroom or whatever it might have been; escape was impossible unless all twelve of them made a combined rush-but after that, what?

A man walked in. “Dowse yer nabs n toges!” he shouted.

They looked at him blankly.

“Nabs n toges orf!”

When nobody moved he cast his eyes at the ceiling, stormed up to Richard, who was closest, knocked his hat off and yanked at his greatcoat and the suit coat he wore beneath it.

“I think he wants us to take off our hats and coats.”

Everybody obeyed.

“Nah kicks araon stampers n keep yer mishes orn!”

They looked at him blankly.

He ground his teeth, shut his eyes and said, with a very odd accent, “Britches round your feet but keep your shirts on.”

Everybody obeyed.

“Ready, sir!” he called.

Another man strolled in. “Where are you lot from?” he asked.

“Gloucester Gaol,” said Ike.

“Oh, West Country. Ye’ll have to speak something akin to the King’s English, Matty,” he said to the first man, and then to the prisoners, “I am the doctor. Is anybody sick?”

Apparently assuming that the general murmur was a negative, he nodded and sighed. “Lift your shirts, let us see if there are any blue boars.” He inspected their penises for syphilitic ulcers, and having found none, sighed again. “Bene,” he said to Matty, and to them, “Ye’re a healthy lot, but all things change.” About to leave the room, he said, “Put your clothes on, wait here, and keep quiet.”

They put their clothes on and waited.

It was a full five minutes before Bill Whiting, the chirpiest of the twelve, recovered enough of his cheek to find speech. “Did anybody understand anything yon Matty said?” he asked.

“Not a word,” said young Job Hollister.

“Perhaps he was from Scotland,” said Connelly, remembering that no one in Bristol had understood Jack the Painter.

“Perhaps he was from Woolwich,” said Neddy Perrott.

Which silenced all of them.

An hour went by. They had subsided to the floor and leaned their backs against the walls, feeling the slight shifting under their legs as the ship moved sluggishly against its moorings. Rudderless, thought Richard. We are as rudderless as this thing that was once a ship, farther away from home than any of us has ever been, and with no idea of what awaits. The youngsters are dumbstruck, even Ike Rogers is unsure. And I am filled with dread.

Came the sound of several pairs of feet thumping on wooden planking, the familiar dull clinking of chains; the twelve men stirred, looked at each other uneasily, got up wearily.

“Darbies f y dimber coves!” said the first man through the door. “Fetters, ye pretty hicks! Sit down and nobody move.”

Six inches longer than the Bristol or Gloucester versions, the chains were already welded to the cuffs, which were much lighter, flexible enough for the heavily muscled smith to bend apart around a man’s ankle, then close until the holes in either end overlapped. Then he pushed a flat-headed bolt through the holes from the ankle side, grabbed the prisoner’s leg and slipped the long tongue of an anvil between it and the fetter. Two heavy blows with his hammer and the rivet ends were smashed flat against the iron band forever.

I will wear these for the next six and more years, thought Richard, easing his aching bones by rubbing them. They do not do that for a mere six and more months. Which means that even after I reach Botany Bay, I will wear these until I finish my sentence.

Another smith had fettered the second six from Gloucester, and just as competently. Within half an hour the two of them had the job done, prodded their assistants into gathering the tools up, and left. Two guards remained; Matty must have belonged to the doctor. However, Matty had passed the message on, for when one of the guards spoke, it was in that peculiarly accented English, not in what time would inform the prisoners was “flash lingo”-the speech of the London Newgate and all those who had dealings with that place.

“Ye’ll mess and sleep here tonight,” he said curtly, tapping the knobbed end of his short bludgeon against the palm of his other hand. “Ye can talk and move about. Here, have a bucket.” Then he and his companion moved out, locking the door.

The two Wiltshire lads were wiping away tears; everyone else was dryeyed. Not in a mood for talking until Will Connelly got up and prowled about.

“These feel better on the legs,” he said, lifting one foot. “Chain must be thirty inches long too. Easier to walk.”

Richard ran his fingers over the cuffs and found that they had rounded edges. “Aye, and they will not rub so much. We will go through fewer rags.”

“Proper working irons,” said Bill Whiting. “I wonder what sort of work it will be?”

Just before nightfall they were given small beer, stale and very dark brown bread, and a mess of boiled cabbage with leeks.

“Not for me,” said Ike, pushing the pot of cabbage away.

“Eat it, Ike,” Richard ordered. “My cousin James says we must eat every vegetable we can get, otherwise we will get scurvy.”

Ike was unimpressed. “That muck could not cure a runny nose.”

“I agree,” said Richard, having tasted it. “However, it is a change from bread, so I will eat it.”

After which, windowless, womanless and cheerless, they lay down on the floor, wrapped their greatcoats about them, used their hats as pillows, and let the gently moving river rock them to sleep.

The nextmorning, amid a drizzling grey rain, they were taken off Reception and loaded into an open lighter. So far nothing hideously cruel had happened to them; the guards were surly brutes, but as long as the prisoners did as they were told at the pace demanded, they kept their bludgeons to themselves. The wooden boxes were a source of curiosity, obviously, yet why had no one inspected them? On the dock they learned why. A short, rotund gentleman in an old-fashioned wig and a fusty suit came hurrying down from the ship’s remnant of a poop, hands outstretched, beaming.