Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

When finally someone opened the forward hatch it was not to remove the bodies; 25 new convicts were thrust into the freezing, filthy air of the prison.

“Fucken Christ!” came the voice of John Power. “What do the fucken buggers think they’re doing? There is sickness down here and they fill us up to overflowing again! Christ, Christ, Christ! ”

An interesting man, John Power, thought Richard. He rules up forward, the flash boy from the Old Bailey and the London Newgate who usually speaks in plain English. Now he possesses not only the hospital platforms, but a new detachment of inmates. Poor bastard. Alexander had trimmed from 200 down to 185, now there are 210 of us.

By the 13th of March four more men were dead; six corpses lay on the hospital platforms, several of them there for over a week. No one could be persuaded to come down and touch them; by now it was commonly known that the disease was plague.

Not long after dawn on the 13th of March the forward hatch was opened and a party of marines wearing gloves and with scarves muffling their faces took the six bodies away.

“Why?” asked Will Connelly. “Not that I am sorry to see them go, mind. Just-why?”

“I would say that one of the big wigs is coming to visit,” said Richard. “Tidy up, lads, and look bursting with health.”

Major Robert Ross arrived shortly after the bodies had gone, accompanied by Lieutenant John Johnstone, Lieutenant James Shairp and a man who appeared to be a doctor, judging from his manner. A slender, handsome fellow with a long nose, enormous blue eyes and a pretty little curl of fair hair on his broad white brow. They brought lamps and an escort of ten marine privates, who preceded them down the after hatch and filed along larboard and starboard aisles like men being sent to their doom, young enough to be intimidated, old enough to know what sort of specter squatted here.

The chamber filled with a soft golden glow; Richard finally saw the shape of his fate in all its terrible detail. The sick now occupied all 34 berths which sat isolated in the middle section forward of the tables; beyond them, where the foremast went through near the bows, was a bulkhead much narrower than the one astern behind Richard’s cot. The double tier of platforms was continuous all the way around, it contained no break whatsoever. That is how they do it! That is how they have managed to squeeze 210 poor wretches into a space 35 feet at its widest and less than 70 feet from end to end. They have packed us in like bottles on shelving. No wonder we die. Compared to this, Gloucester Gaol was a paradise-at least we got out into the fresh air and could work. Here is only darkness and stench, immobility and madness. I keep prating to my people of survival, but how can we survive this place? Dear God, I despair. I despair.

All three of the marine officers were Scotch, Ross having the broadest burr and Johnstone the least. A dour and sandy man, Ross, slight of build, nondescript of face save for a thin, determined mouth and a pair of cold, pale grey eyes.

First he toured the establishment in a leisurely fashion, commencing on the starboard side. He walked as if participating in a funeral, head going from side to side with clockwork timing, steps slow and deliberate. At the isolation cots he paused, it seemed quite without fear, to examine the sick in company with his medical man, murmuring inaudibly to this attractive fellow, who kept shaking his head emphatically. Major Ross continued around the curve between the isolated platforms and those at the foremast, then began to walk down the larboard aisle toward the stern.

At Dring below and Isaac Rogers above he stopped, looked down at the deck beneath his feet, gestured to one of the privates and directed that the boy should pull out the night buckets, which had been emptied and rinsed out. His eyes rested on Ike, trembling as he lay with his head on Joey Long’s lap.

“This man is sick,” he said to Johnstone rather than to the doctor. “Put him with the others.”

“No, sir,” said Richard instantly, too shocked to think of prudence. “It is not what you think, we have none of that down here. He nearly died from seasickness, that is all.”

An extraordinary look came over the Major’s face, of horror and comprehension combined; he reached up and took Ike’s hand, squeezed it. “I know what ye go through, then,” he said. “Water and dry biscuit, nothing else helps.”

A marine major who got dreadfully seasick!

The eyes traveled then to Richard’s face, to all the faces in those two last upper cots, assimilating the cropped hair, the damp clothing and rags strung on lines between the beams, recently shaven chins, a certain air of pride having nothing to do with defiance. “Ye have kept very clean,” he said, and plucked at the matting. “Aye, very clean.”

No one replied.

Major Ross turned and stepped onto a bench just where the open hatch provided him with a little fresh air. He had not betrayed a sign of disgust at the vapors which swirled through the prison, but he did seem more comfortable on this perch.

“My name,” he announced in a parade-ground voice, “is Major Robert Ross. Commandant of Marines on this expedition, and also Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales. I am the sole commander of your persons and your lives. Governor Phillip has other concerns. Mine are all ye. This ship is not at all satisfactory-men are dying in her and I intend to find out why. Mr. William Balmain here is surgeon on Alexander and will commence his duties tomorrow. Lieutenant Johnstone is senior marine officer aboard and Lieutenant Shairp is his second-in-command. It seems ye have had few fresh provisions in over two months. That will be rectified while this ship is in port. This deck will be fumigated, which will necessitate the removal of most of ye to other accommodation. Only those seventy-two men in the cots adjacent to the stern bulkhead will remain on board and will be expected to help.”

He gestured to his two lieutenants, who sat down together at the table alongside his booted feet and produced paper, ink and quills out of a writing case Lieutenant Shairp carried. “I will now proceed to take a census,” the Major said. “When I point at a man, he will give me his name and the name of the hulk from which he boarded. You can start.” He pointed at Jimmy Price.

It took a very long time. Major Ross was thorough, but his two scribes were as awkward as they were slow; writing was clearly not a pleasure. Some twenty names into the procedure and Major Ross stepped down to con what his scribes were producing.

“Ye illiterate boobies! What did ye do, buy your commissions? Numskulls! Idiots! Ye could not find a fuck in a bawdy house!”

Phew! thought Richard. He has a shocking temper, and he cares not at all that he has just humiliated his junior officers in front of a parcel of convicts.

Oh, but when the marines departed the darkness was hard to bear! A veil had been lifted to reveal the prison in all its monstrous, festering hideousness, but the golden light had been kind and the sight of so many men hunched in their cots round-eyed as owls had somehow reduced danger to human proportions. With the going of the last lamp, what was left could not be imagined, let alone seen or palpated. The night had come, and despite Major Ross’s promise of fresh food, no one had thought to feed them anything.

In themorning the move began through the forward hatch; the sick were handled through gloves and scarf masks, those who did the handling insensitive to the screams of agony which shifting them provoked. By noon the only men left in the prison were located in the three double cots on starboard and larboard at the stern bulkhead. A great deal of lamplight had been provided; minus most of the convicts it was easy to see what kind of cesspool two-and-a-half months on board had created. Vomit, feces, overflowing night buckets, filthy decks and platforms.