Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [27]
She made up her mind then that survival was far more important than morality.
Eventually the rain abated, and the hatches were opened again, to reveal a foot of bilge water beneath the sleeping shelves, vomit and excrement floating on it. The sickness among the prisoners persisted, claiming yet another two souls. The men called through the grille to the women, but they were suffering just as badly. Mary heard that Able, her cellmate in Exeter, had died, as well as a young boy, barely fifteen years of age, and two of the older men.
Mary spoke to Will Bryant one morning. Even he didn’t sound as brash and full of confidence as previously.
‘If it’s gaol fever that’s come amongst us, we’ll all die,’ he said gloomily. ‘We’ve got to find a way to make them swill out these holds. There’s more rats than ever and I fear for us all.’
‘I’ll try and do something,’ she said.
‘What can a little thing like you do?’ he retorted arrogantly.
‘I can try pleading for us,’ she said, more determined because he doubted her.
‘You can try, but it won’t get you anywhere,’ he said. ‘They want us all to die, then they’ll fill the hulk with new ’uns who’ll die too. Save ’em a fortune it will.’
‘You bring shame to Cornishmen,’ she shouted at him. ‘Talk like that won’t help anyone.’
‘I’ll marry you if you get the holds swilled out,’ he called back, and gave a raucous laugh.
‘Be careful I don’t hold you to that,’ Mary yelled at him.
Sarah smiled weakly as Mary told her what she intended to do.
‘The guards won’t get Tench or Graham down here,’ she said. ‘They’ll just ignore you.’
‘I’ve got to try,’ Mary insisted.
There was no point in banging on the door, no one ever answered. So Mary waited until the guard came down to order two of the women to bring out the slop buckets, and as soon as he unlocked the door she pounced on him.
‘I’ve got to see Lieutenant Captain Tench or Lieutenant Graham,’ she insisted.
‘Bugger off,’ he said, pushing her away with his stick. ‘You’ll see no one.’
‘I will,’ she said, grabbing him by the arm. ‘If you don’t take a message to one of them from me, I’ll see you punished.’
‘You get me punished?’ His narrow eyes became even narrower. ‘D’you think anyone up there would take the word of a bloody felon?’
‘Ignore me at your peril,’ Mary replied menacingly. ‘I’m telling you, give them the message, or take what will come to you.’
‘Bugger off,’ he repeated, but this time with less conviction. He ordered two women to take the buckets, holding Mary back with his stick.
‘Tell them,’ she yelled out as he slammed the door and locked it. ‘Tell them or be damned – it’s important.’
Mary tried again when the women came back with the buckets, but with the same response. As the hours crept by and still no one came, she stared out through the hatch at the dark grey sky above and cried. More women were going down with the fever, and she feared that if they were left like this they would all be dead within a week.
‘You did your best,’ Sarah said in an attempt to comfort her. ‘It’s just like Will said, they don’t care if we die.’
‘That may be true of most of them but I can’t believe it of Tench or Graham,’ Mary said. ‘I won’t believe it.’
She had no idea what time of day it was, as there was no sun to tell her, but it felt like late afternoon when a guard came in and called her name.
‘Up there with you,’ he said.
It wasn’t the same man she’d threatened earlier, but she felt he knew of it because for once he didn’t whack her with his stick. As Mary reached the top of the companionway she took a deep breath of clean air, and it made her giddy.
Lieutenant Graham was standing on deck. ‘You wanted to see me?’ he asked.
Mary poured out what was wrong. ‘The holds must be scrubbed out,’ she pleaded. ‘We’ll all go down with fever if they aren’t.’
He remained impassive, and it infuriated her. ‘If we all get fever it will spread to all of