Bryce Courtenay - The Potato Factory

'I am not mocked saith the Lord,' Potbottom shouted gleefully, 'Mary Habacus and Ann Gower now step you forward at once!'

A flock of bright green parrots flew over the ship calling raucously as though in a mocking welcome. Mary, determined to show no emotion, watched as the rising sun caught the gloss on the wings of the beautiful birds as they drew away from the ship.

She had seen a flock of parrots fly overhead as they sailed out of Rio de Janeiro. Now here they were again. Mary smiled as Ann Gower came up to her. Then she opened her arms and embraced her, the smaller woman holding the much larger one clasped to her thin chest. Mary looked over Ann Gower's shoulder at Joshua Smiles and to her own surprise she heard herself say, 'Hear you, Joshua Smiles, we are the women o' this new land! You cannot defeat us, because we will never again surrender to the sanctimonious tyranny o' your kind!' She paused momentarily and pointed her crooked finger at the surgeon-superintendent. 'Gawd is not mocked!'

It was late into the afternoon when the hatch to the coal hole was opened and Mary and Ann Gower were allowed to emerge onto the deck. Their eyes, grown accustomed to the pitch darkness, were at first blinded by the brightness of the afternoon light.

The Destiny II had anchored late in the morning in Sullivan's Cove and the last of the prisoners were being cleared to disembark. Now as Mary and Ann Gower stood on the deck they observed a town of quite harmonious appearance. Built on the water's edge and rising steeply back from the Government Wharf, Hobart contained many well constructed buildings of stone and brick, and its streets were straight and broad. Several large native trees, saved from the builder's axe, gave the town an appearance of permanence which belied its recent development.

It was then that Mary, her eyes adjusted to the spring sunshine, glanced well beyond the waterfront to where Hobart Town climbed upon an even steeper slope, and saw the mountain. It rose into the ice-blue sky fully four thousand feet above her, its great rounded dome covered in late snow.

Mary gasped, bringing her hand to her chest, her heart pounding. This morning she had seen the parrots fly over her head and now, as in Rio de Janeiro, she had been given the gift of the great mountain. 'It all begins now, with the green birds and the magic mountain,' she whispered to herself. 'The luck begins for me. Whatever may follow, I swear I shall never knowingly surrender it again.' As if it was a catechism, she repeated the words on the Waterloo medal, 'I shall never surrender'.

What followed was a most tedious induction by the muster master, who sat at a table further along the deck, a canvas canopy having been built above his bald head to keep the sun at bay. He was in a most churlish mood, having been at his task several hours, and snapped at the two convicts to step forward.

Each in turn was made to stand before him while he completed their records. They were fortunate to have missed the visit on board by the lieutenant-governor, for it proved a tedious and longwinded occasion. The prisoners had been paraded on board and made to stand a full hour on deck before the great man, seated on a handsome black stallion, arrived at the Government Wharf. Colonel George Arthur dismounted to a short, sharp roll from a kettle drum and a salute by a platoon of troopers in scarlet jackets. Ignoring the large crowd, he stepped into a longboat where he stood upright in a stiff military manner as he was rowed to the vessel.

Once on board he lost no time with pleasantries, nodding brusquely at the master and officers and grunting, 'Well done!' Then turning to Joshua Smiles he shook his hand in a cursory manner, acknowledging him with the single word, 'Surgeon!' This may well have been a deliberate attempt to exert his authority for Colonel George Arthur was short in stature and came not much beyond the belt of the surgeon-superintendent. Although his exceedingly short legs did not hinder him in a frock coat, whenever he appeared in full vice regal uniform or in a military deck-out his sword would drag along the ground as he walked. He was a man of rigid formality who would not entertain the possibility of a sword trimmed to less than regulation size, and so he always inspected his troops on horseback, selecting a large and fiery stallion for this purpose.

The governor tucked his small hands beneath the tail of his deep blue frock coat and commenced to stride up and down the assembled ranks of convicts.

'The hearts of every man and woman are desperately wicked and there is but one means of salvation, this be to have faith in the Lord and in Christ's crucifixion! You will attend church regularly and twice on Sunday, that is an order!'

All his entreaties and warnings were completed crisply and without prevarication, enumerating in exact detail what he regarded as both good and bad behaviour and giving a dozen examples of each. The ultimate result of good behaviour was the prospect of an early ticket of leave; of bad, the certain demise of the repeatedly offending prisoner.

Suddenly, Arthur stopped pacing and pointed across the narrow strip of water separating the ship from the shore, to beyond the crowds waiting on the wharf, and further still to some point imagined on the steep road leading up the hill.

'As you come ashore on the way to the Female Factory you will pass a gibbet. There you will observe that the two corpses which hang from it are male. We have not yet on this island hanged a woman by the neck, but that is not to say we cannot.' The governor paused for the effects of his words to sink in. 'I implore you all to look well how they hang and to take great care to ensure that your destiny upon this island does not converge with that of these two unfortunate wretches.' Colonel Arthur pulled himself to his full stature. 'I will have you know that since I assumed this office, fully one hundred and fifty prisoners have been capitally convicted and executed! I tell you now, I am a fair man, but there is no mercy for those who will not observe the spirit and the letter of the law in its most infinite detail!' Colonel Arthur cast a cold eye over the prisoners. 'Do not disappoint me, for I warn you, I am not a man who takes well to disappointment!'

Now, several hours after the governor had departed, Mary and Ann Gower were subjected to a most thorough interrogation by the muster master, no doubt occasioned by his fear of the governor himself. He was a small, balding, bespectacled man of a most pernickety clerical appearance with an abundance of grey hair sprouting from his ears, who scratched the answers to his sharp and practised questions in a large black book which bore upon its gold-embossed cover the title: Conduct Register.

It was this book which ruled the lives of every prisoner on the island and from whence came the expression, 'I am in his black books', to mean that things do not go well for someone.

Colonel Arthur fervently believed that every convict should be strictly accounted for and that the course of their lives, from the day of a prisoner's landing to that of their emancipation or death, should be written down. It was necessary therefore that every particular concerning a convict should be registered on their day of arrival and before they were taken ashore.

Mary's description was accordingly written down: Light straw coloured hair, green eyes-placed wide apart, scar on left cheek, brow high, hands badly deformed – black/blue in colour, height 5 feet and 2 inches, skin fair, face clear – no pox pitting, comely in appearance.

Next followed details on her crime and the events surrounding it, her non-marital status, date and place of birth, trade, next of kin and religion. Mary's literacy and numeracy were noted and both these tested and a sample of her handwriting added to the records. At the conclusion of her writing and numeracy test the muster master had said not unkindly, 'I 'ope you be'aves yourself, Prisoner Abacus. Orphans' school be most pleased to 'ave you, they would.'