Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [7]
Able, a sickly-looking man in his thirties, glanced back at Mary. ‘What does he know?’ he said dourly. ‘I heard tell they ain’t sending no more felons to the Americas now the war’s over.’
Mary had heard the same thing too while she was in Plymouth. If it was true, it would be a relief, for she’d been brought up with horror stories passed on by sailors of the terrors that lay in store in that far-off land. Convicts there were treated the same as the black slaves, starved, beaten, made to work on the land till they dropped dead from exhaustion. Yet if not to America, where would they be sent, and would it be any better?
Once out in the yard, Mary saw other prisoners lined up, including Mary Haydon and Catherine Fryer, her old partners in crime. There were five women in all, and some fifteen or sixteen men. Mary Haydon tossed her head and looked the other way when she saw Mary, but Catherine glowered at her, so clearly they still held her responsible for their plight.
A judge, or at least Mary assumed that’s what he was, by his wig and gown, came down the few steps into the yard, flanked by a couple of other men, then read aloud from a piece of parchment.
Mary could make no sense of what he was reading. She heard ‘At Assizes and general delivery of the gaol of our Lord the King,’ then what sounded like a string of ‘Sirs’ who were all unknown to her. It wasn’t until she heard her own name mentioned that she began to listen more intently. At the words, ‘His Majesty has been graciously pleased to extend the royal mercy on them,’ Mary’s heart leaped. But as the judge read on, her heart sank again, for it was as Dick had said, mercy on condition they be transported for seven years.
After the judge had left the prison yard, leaving the prisoners there alone with the guards, they turned to one another, their delight that they weren’t to be hanged mingling with an acute fear of what transportation would mean.
‘I never met anyone who ever came back from it,’ one man said gloomily. ‘They must have all died.’
‘I know a man that did come back,’ another man retorted loudly. ‘He had money in his pockets too.’
Mary tried to make sense of the babble of conflicting opinions around her. While she personally felt that a seven-year sentence, however hard, had to be better than hanging, every single person in the yard appeared to be more knowledgeable on the subject than she was, so there was no point in her volunteering that opinion. But as the woman standing next to her began to cry, she put her arm around her to comfort her.
‘It’s got to be better than dying,’ she said softly. ‘We’ll be out in the fresh air, we might even be able to escape.’
Able, who was standing in front of her, must have heard what she said for he turned to her, a scornful expression on his face. ‘That’s if we don’t die on the voyage,’ he said.
Mary thought privately that he wasn’t long for this world anyway. He had a hacking cough, he was very thin and the only one of them in the cell who showed no eagerness when the daily mouldy bread was dished out.
‘As long as I’m still breathing, then I’ll still hope,’ she retorted staunchly.
Less than an hour later, doors in the prison yard opened and two large horse-drawn carts were led in.
The prisoners had all pondered on why they had been left out in the yard, but no one had anticipated they would be moved from Exeter Castle that same day. But that was what was planned, and without any further delay, they were chained together into groups of five and ordered up on to the carts. Once again, Mary found herself alongside Catherine and Mary. On the other side of her was the woman she’d comforted earlier, whose name was Elizabeth Cole, and another called Elizabeth Baker. Behind their bench were five men, one of them Able.
For the first hour, as the cart slowly trundled its way out through Exeter, Catherine Fryer and Mary Haydon kept up a volley of abuse towards Mary.
‘It’s all your fault,’ Catherine repeated again and again. ‘You brought us to this.’
Elizabeth Cole, who went by the name of Bessie, squeezed Mary’s hand