Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

Then it was their turn to move, but through the after hatch. I do not care, thought Richard, who steals what below; they are welcome to it, for I will not leave one of mine on guard down there alone. Though as long as the rumor of plague is about, our things are probably safe.

Fumigation consisted of exploding gunpowder in every part of Alexander below her upper deck and sealing the hatches fast.

They lay in a calm stretch of water well offshore, which was a fascinating sight: great bastions and fortresses bristling with gigantic guns ringed the place around, for this was England’s naval headquarters and stood looking south past the Isle of Wight to the French coast at Cherbourg, where the ancient, traditional enemy lay watchful. Where or what kind of town was Portsmouth was a mystery beyond the mighty fortifications, some of them older than the time of Henry VIII, some of them still under construction. Was it here that Admiral Kempenfeldt and 1,000 men went down on the Royal George only five years ago? Careened for a leak, the biggest firstrater England had ever built filled up through her thirty-two-pounder portholes and sank in a swirling vortex.

Johnstone and Shairp had a difference of opinion as to whether the convicts left on board should be manacled; Johnstone prevailed and hands stayed free. Having lost the argument, Shairp took the jollyboat and went to visit a congenial colleague aboard another vessel bound for Botany Bay. There were several such now, one of them almost as large as Alexander.

“Scarborough,” said fourth mate Stephen Donovan, cradling the big marmalade cat in his arms. “Yonder is Lady Penrhyn-ye know her-and the addition, Prince of Wales. They could not manage to get all aboard five transports, so she is the sixth. Charlotte and Friendship have sailed to Plymouth to pick up those on Dunkirk.”

“And the three loading from lighters closer in shore?” Richard asked, turning his head to glare a fierce warning at Bill Whiting, who looked as if relative liberation might loosen his tongue in a Miss Molly jest Miss Molly Donovan might not appreciate.

“The storeships-Borrowdale, Fishburn and Golden Grove. We are to carry sufficient supplies to last for three years from the time we reach Botany Bay,” said Mr. Donovan, eyes caressing.

“And how long does the Admiralty think it will take to get to Botany Bay?” asked Thomas Crowder, smarming sweetly.

As Crowder was not to Mr. Donovan’s taste-too simian-the fourth mate chose to direct his answer to Richard Morgan, whom he found very fascinating. Not so much because of his looks, though they were wonderful-more because of his aloofness, his air of keeping most of what he thought to himself. A head man, but of far different kind from Johnny Power, whom all the crew knew well. A Thames seaman with the sense not to talk flash, Power and sailors had a natural affinity.

“The Admiralty estimates that the voyage will take between four and six months,” Mr. Donovan said, pointedly ignoring Crowder.

“It will take longer than that,” said Richard.

“I agree. When the Admiralty does its calculations it always thinks that winds blow forever in the right quarter-that masts never snap-that spars never come adrift-and that sails never split, fall in the slings or work loose from the reefing pendants.” He tickled the loudly purring cat beneath its chin.

“No dog?” asked Richard.

“Bastards of things! Rodney here is Alexander’s cat and the equal of any dog aboard, which is why they don’t mess with him. He is named after Admiral Rodney, with whom I served in the West Indies when we thrashed the Frogs off Jamaica.” He lifted his lip at a hovering bulldog; so did Rodney, whereupon the bulldog decided it had urgent business elsewhere. “There are twenty-seven dogs aboard, all of them belonging to the marines. They will soon diminish. The spaniels and terriers ain’t too bad, they rat, but a hound is simply shark bait. Dogs fall overboard. Cats never do.” He kissed Rodney on top of his head and put him on the rail to illustrate his contention. Indifferent to the lapping water below, the cat settled with paws tucked under and continued to purr.

“Where have they sent the rest of the convicts?” asked Will Connelly, rescuing Richard, who moved unobtrusively away.

“Some to The Firm, some to Fortunee, the sick to a hospital ship and the rest to that lighter there.” Mr. Donovan pointed.

“For how long?”

“I suspect for one or two weeks at least.”

“But the men in the lighter will freeze to death!”

“Nay. They put them ashore each night in a camp, manacled and chained together. Better to be on a lighter than on a hulk.”

The followingday Alexander’s surgeon, Mr. William Balmain, brought two other doctors aboard, apparently to look at the ship, since the sick convicts were gone. One, whispered Stephen Donovan, was John White, chief surgeon to the expedition. The other, they could see for themselves, was the Portsmouth medical man Lieutenant Shairp had called in when Alexander first arrived.

Having received no work orders yet, the convicts stood about in close proximity to the doctors and listened to what was said; the equally curious crew were genuinely too busy to eavesdrop-cargo was arriving in lighters.

The Portsmouth doctor was convinced the illness was a rare form of bubonic plague; surgeons White and Balmain disagreed.

“Malignant!” cried the doctor. “It is bubonic!”

“Benign,” said the surgeons. “It is not bubonic.”

But all three concurred about preventative measures: the ’tween decks would have to be fumigated again, scrubbed thoroughly with oil of tar, then thickly coated with whitewash-a solution of quicklime, powdered chalk, size and water.

Left on board to supervise the loading of cargo, Stephen Donovan was not amused; the decks were piling up with casks, kegs, sacks, crates, barrels and parcels.

“I have to get them below!” he snapped to White and Balmain. “How can I do that when ye’ve got them hatches battened all day for your wretched fumigations? There is only one thing will rid Alexander of what ails her, and that is better bilge pumps!”

“The smell,” said Balmain loftily, “is due to dead bodies. A week or two at sea after extensive fumigation will remove it.”

White had wandered away to discover how the crew could load cargo through an intervening prison; a look below showed him that the tables and benches in the prison had been removed to reveal six-foot-square hatches beneath them exactly in line with those on the upper deck. Winched inboard on davits, even the gigantic water tuns were dropped straight into the orlop hold. He came back with his air of brisk superiority very much to the fore, brushed Balmain and Donovan aside, and issued orders.

The 36 starboard prisoners were despatched into the prison to mop, scrub and sponge the place with vinegar before fumigation with gunpowder; the 36 larboard convicts were sent down into the marines’ quarters below steerage, there to do the same.

“Christ!” squeaked Taffy Edmunds. “Poor little Davy Evans was right-we convicts are in heaven compared to this, though ’twould be nice to sleep in hammocks.”

The hold floor was awash in bilge overflow which stank worse than the prison compartment and released gases which had turned the pewter buttons on those brave scarlet coats as black as coal. The ’tween decks was scarcely six feet, which meant bending to pass under the beams, as on Ceres.

Thus it was that Richard and the larboard convicts were made privy to what took place between the irresistible force and the immovable object; Major Ross and Captain Sinclair came to grips in the marines’ hold under the fascinated eyes of 36 men. This stupendous battle was heralded by the arrival of the Major at the bottom of the wooden ladder from the crew’s quarters above.