Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [42]
The only male prisoner that Mary saw often was Will Bryant, and occasionally Jamie Cox was with him too. The rest of the men weren’t allowed up on deck for long. Whether this was because they outnumbered the crew, or that Captain Gilbert felt the women prisoners and the Marines’ families needed fresh air more, Mary didn’t know, but Will got special privileges. It seemed he had talked his way into being allowed to do some fishing to supplement the ship’s rations, so he spent a good part of every day on deck. Mary admired his resourcefulness, and thought they had a lot in common.
When the ship dropped anchor in Santa Cruz to take on fresh water and more provisions, the ship’s company were free to go ashore, and once again the prisoners were chained and the hatches closed. It was June and the heat was suffocating, and to be forced to lie sweltering in the darkness after the comparative freedom they’d enjoyed before was intolerable. For Mary it was even more unbearable as now that her belly was swelling she found it impossible to get comfortable on the hard bench, and the lack of fresh air made her nauseous.
But as they set sail again to Rio in South America, the chains were removed and they were allowed on deck again. One afternoon, Mary was sitting dozing in the sunshine when she heard Will Bryant swearing because his fishing net was torn. She got up and made her way back to the stern where he was sitting and offered to mend it for him.
He had become even more attractive during the voyage. The increased rations had put flesh back on his body, his eyes were as blue as the sky above, his fair hair and beard bleached by the sun and his skin a golden-brown. He also had an impudent grin and a great deal of cheek.
‘You know how to mend a net?’ he asked, looking surprised.
‘Would any girl from Fowey not know how to?’ she laughed.
Mary thought that it was because she was usefully employed mending the net that no one came over and ordered them apart. She and Will spent the whole afternoon chatting together, mostly about Cornwall.
‘You’re looking very bonny,’ Will said suddenly. ‘When’s the little ’un due?’
Mary was stricken with sudden embarrassment. She hadn’t realized anyone other than Surgeon White and Sarah knew. If Will had guessed, maybe Tench knew too!
‘September,’ she murmured, blushing to the roots of her hair. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’ve got eyes,’ Will laughed. ‘It ain’t something you can hide forever, not when the wind blows your dress close to you.’
Mary felt a little queasy. ‘Does everyone know?’
Will shrugged. ‘Dunno. Why? Are you scared?’
‘A bit,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t want folk to think badly of me, and I don’t know much about babies.’
‘Don’t you trouble yourself about what folk think,’ he said with a grin. ‘There’ll be plenty of other women having a babby afore we get there. As for not knowing about babbies, reckon that comes natural like. The other women will help you too, so don’t you fret about nothing.’
Mary was touched that he could be sensitive, she’d always thought of him as being something of a hard man. A little later he told her he’d heard that a convict on the Alexander, another ship in the fleet, had hidden on the deck in Tenerife and lowered himself into the sea later when it was dark and stolen the rowing boat tied to the stern.
‘Damn great lummox gave himself away by going to a Dutch ship and asking to be taken aboard,’ Will laughed. ‘I’d have made for the town and hidden up till the fleet was gone.’
‘I used to think about escape all the time on the Dunkirk,’ Mary admitted. ‘There’s no point in thinking on it now, not in my condition. But as soon as the baby’s born, I’ll be watching for an opportunity again.’
‘I’ll wait to see what Botany Bay’s like first,’ Will said. ‘If I can fish, build a decent place to live, grow a few vegetables, it might not be so bad.’
‘But we don’t know what the prisoners on the other transports are like,’ Mary pointed out.