A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [108]
Londoners stopped what they were doing to watch the convicts make their last, shameful progress through the heart of the city. Some shouted condolences, some jeered and mocked, and a few threw stones or rubbish. Mack asked a friendly-looking woman to take a message to Caspar Gordonson, but she refused. He tried again, twice, with the same result.
The irons slowed them down, and it took more than an hour to shuffle to the waterfront. The river was busy with ships, barges, ferries and rafts, for the strikes were over, crushed by the troops. It was a warm spring morning. Sunlight glinted oft the muddy Thames. A boat was waiting to take them out to their ship, which was anchored in midstream. Mack read its name: “The Rosebud.”
“Is it a Jamisson ship?” said Cora.
“I think most of the convict ships are.”
As he stepped from the muddy foreshore into the boat, Mack realized this would be the last time he stood on British soil for many years, perhaps forever. He had mixed feelings: fear and apprehension mingled with a certain reckless excitement at the prospect of a new country and a new life.
Boarding the ship was difficult: they had to climb the ladder in pairs with the leg irons on. Peg and Cora managed easily enough, being young and nimble, but Mack had to carry Barney. One pair of men fell into the river. Neither the guards nor the sailors did anything to help them, and they would have drowned if the other prisoners had not reached out and pulled them back into the boat.
The ship was about forty feet long by fifteen wide. Peg commented: “I’ve burgled drawing rooms that were bigger than this, by Christ.” On deck were hens in a coop, a small pigsty, and a tethered goat. On the other side of the ship a magnificent white horse was being hoisted out of a boat with the help of the yardarm used as a crane. A scrawny cat bared its fangs at Mack. He had an impression of coiled ropes and furled sails, a smell of varnish, and a rocking motion underfoot; then they were shoved across the lip of a hatch and down a ladder.
There seemed to be three lower decks. On the first, four sailors were eating their midday meal, sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by sacks and chests that presumably contained supplies for the voyage. On the third, all the way down at the foot of the ladder, two men were stacking barrels, hammering wedges between them so that they could not move during the voyage. At the level of the middle deck, which was obviously for the convicts, a sailor roughly pulled Mack and Barney off the ladder and shoved them through a doorway.
There was an odor of tar and vinegar. Mack peered at his surroundings in the gloom. The ceiling was an inch or two above his head: a tall man would have to stoop. It was pierced by two gratings that admitted a little light and air, not from outside but from the enclosed deck above, which itself was lit by open hatches. Along both sides of the hold were wooden racks, six feet wide, one at waist height and one a few inches off the floor.
With horror Mack realized the racks were for the convicts to lie on. They would be spending the voyage on these bare shelves.
They shuffled along the narrow walkway between the rows. The first few berths were already occupied by convicts lying flat, still chained in pairs. They were quiet, stunned by what was happening to them. A sailor directed Peg and Cora to lie next to Mack and Barney, like knives in a drawer. They took their positions, and the sailor roughly shoved them closer together, so that they were touching. Peg was able to sit upright but the grown-ups were not, for there was not enough headroom. The best Mack could do was to prop himself on one elbow.
At the end of the row Mack spotted a large earthenware jar, about two