Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

They had ways of passing the time; in the absence of gin and rum, chiefly by gambling. Each group owned at least one deck of playing cards and a pair of dice, but not everyone who lost (the stakes varied from food to chores) was gallant about it. Those who could read formed a substratum; perhaps ten per cent of the total number of men exchanged books if they had them or begged books if they did not, though ownership was jealously guarded. And perhaps twenty per cent washed their linen handouts from Mr. Duncan Campbell, stringing them on lines which crisscrossed the beams and made walking for exercise even harder. Though the orlop was not overcrowded, the available space for walking limited the shuffling, head-bowing parade to about fifty men at any one time. The rest had either to sit on the benches or lie on the platforms. In the six months between July and the end of December, Ceres lost 80 men of disease-over a quarter of the entire convict complement, and evenly distributed between the two decks.

Late in December Mr. Thistlethwaite was able to tell them more. By now his audience had greatly enlarged and consisted of all who could understand him-and that number had grown too, thanks to propinquity. Only the slowest rustics among the orlop inmates by now could not follow the speech of those who spoke an English somewhat akin to that written in books, as well as grasp a great deal of flash lingo provided the users of it spoke slowly enough.

“The tenders have been let,” he announced to his listeners, “and some tears have been shed. Mr. Duncan Campbell decided that he had sufficient on his plate with his academies, so ended in not tendering at all. The cheapest tender, from Messrs. Turnbull Macaulay and T. Gregory-seven-and-a-third pence per day per man or woman-did not succeed. Nor did that of the slavers, Messrs. Camden, Calvert & King-Lord Sydney did not think it wise to use a slaving firm for this first expedition, though again the price was cheap. The successful tender is a friend of Campbell’s named William Richards Junior. He describes himself as a ship’s broker, but his interests go well beyond that. He has partners, naturally. And I take it that he is cooperating closely with Campbell. I should tell ye that the lot of the marines to go with ye is not enviable, for they are included in the tender price on much the same rations save that they get rum and flour daily.”

“How many of us are to go?” asked a Lancastrian.

“There are to be five transports to carry about five hundred and eighty male convicts and almost two hundred female, as well as about two hundred marines plus forty wives and assorted children. Three storeships have been commissioned, and the Royal Navy is represented by a tender and an armed vessel which will function as the fleet’s flagship.”

“What are they calling ‘transports’?” asked a Yorkshireman named William Dring. “I am a seaman from Hull, yet it is a sort of ship I do not know.”

“Transports convey men,” said Richard levelly, meeting Dring’s eyes. “In the main, troops to an overseas destination. I believe there are some such, though they would be old by now-the ones used to send troops to the American War had already been used during the Seven Years’ War. And there are coastal transports for ferrying marines and soldiers around England, Scotland and Ireland. They would be far too small. Jem, were there any specifications in the tender for transports?”

“Only that they be shipshape and capable of a long voyage through uncharted seas. They have, I understand, been inspected by the Navy, but how thoroughly I could not say.” Mr. Thistlethwaite drew a breath and decided to be honest. What was the point in giving these poor wretches false hopes? “The truth, of course, is that there was not a rush to offer vessels. What Lord Sydney had counted on, it seems, was an offer from the East India Company, whose ships are the best. He even dangled the bait of the ships’ proceeding directly from Botany Bay to Wampoa in Cathay to pick up cargoes of tea, but the East India Company was not interested. It prefers that its ships call in to Bengal before proceeding to Wampoa, why I do not know. Therefore no source of vessels proven sound for long voyages was at Lord Sydney’s disposal. It may well be that naval inspection consisted in culling the best out of a poor lot.” He looked around at the dismayed faces and regretted his candor. “Do not think, my friends, that ye’ll be embarked upon tubs likely to sink. No ship’s owner can afford to risk his property unduly, even if his underwriters allowed him the opportunity. No, that is not what I am trying to tell ye.”

Richard spoke. “I know what ye’re trying to say, Jem. That our transports are slavers. Why should they not be? Slaving has fallen off since we have been denied access to Georgia and Carolina, not to mention Virginia. There must be any amount of slavers looking for work. And they are already constructed to carry men. Bristol and Liverpool have them tied up along their docks by the score, and some of them are big enough to hold several hundred slaves.”

“Aye, that is it,” sighed Mr. Thistlethwaite. “You are to go in slavers, those of you who will be picked to go.”

“Is there any word of when?” asked Joe Robinson from Hull.

“None.” Mr. Thistlethwaite looked around the circle of faces and grinned. “Still, ’tis Christmastide, and I have arranged for the Ceres orlop to be issued with a half-pint of rum for all hands. Ye will not have the chance for any on the voyage, so do not guzzle it, let it sit a while on your tongues.”

He drew Richard to one side. “I have brought ye another lot of dripstones from Cousin James-the-druggist-Sykes will hand them over, have no fear.” He threw his arms about Richard and hugged him so tightly that none saw the bag of guineas slip from his coat pocket into Richard’s jacket pocket. “ ’Tis all I can do for ye, friend of my heart. Write, I beg, whenever that may be.”

“My thumbsare pricking,” said Joey Long over supper on the 5th of January, 1787, and shivered.

The others turned to look at him seriously; this simple soul sometimes had premonitions, and they were never wrong.

“Any idea why, Joey?” asked Ike Rogers.

Joey shook his head. “No. They are just pricking.”

But Richard knew. Tomorrow was the 6th, and on each 6th of January for the past two years he had begun the move to a new place of pain. “Joey feels a change coming,” he said. “Tonight we get our things together. We wash, we cut our hair back to the scalp, we comb each other for lice, we make sure no item of clothing or sack or bag or box is unmarked. In the morning they will move us.”

Job Hollister’s lip quivered. “We might not be chosen.”

“We might not. But I think Joey’s thumbs say we will.”

And thank you, Jem Thistlethwaite, for that half-pint of rum. While the Ceres orlop snored, I was able to secret your guineas in our boxes, though no one knows save me.

From

January of 1787

until

January of 1788

A t dawn the tranfportees were culled, a total of 60 men intheir habitual groups of six, leaving another 73 convicts looking vastly relieved at being passed over. Who, how or why the ten groups chosen to go from the Ceres orlop had been selected no one knew, save that Mr. Hanks and Mr. Sykes had a list and worked from it. The ages of those going varied from fifteen to sixty; most of them (as all the old hands knew) were unskilled, and some of them were sick. Mr. Hanks and Mr. Sykes ignored such considerations; they had their list and that, it seemed, was that.