Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [84]
‘Let’s drink a toast to the light at the end of a very dark tunnel,’ he suggested.
White filled their glasses. ‘Light to banish the darkness,’ he said, and chuckled. ‘Though with another three transports, and a thousand convicts on their way, we’ll need a great deal of light to banish that darkness.’
Mary and Will stood together at the harbour, quaking as they looked out across the bay to the Neptune and the Scarborough. They could see the longboats being lowered to bring the convicts ashore. But the terrible stench coming from the ships was enough for them to know that what they were about to see was going to be utterly appalling.
It had been bad enough on the previous day, helping the sick from the Surprise to the hospital. Many of those convicts were so frail that they were unable to walk, having lain in their own vomit and excreta for most of the voyage. But today was going to be even worse.
The Justinian had arrived on 20 June, bringing joy to everyone in the settlement as she carried ample provisions and much-needed equipment, along with animals. She had left England some time after the Surprise, Neptune and Scarborough, the three transport ships carrying another 1,000 convicts. But she had overtaken them and made the voyage in only five months. Full rations were issued once again, and working hours put back to normal. The Justinian left again as soon as her cargo was unloaded, to take provisions to Norfolk Island.
On the 23rd the flag was struck again, but it was two days before the ship which had been signalled sailed into the bay. This was the Surprise, carrying 218 male convicts and a detachment of the newly formed New South Wales Corps.
It was shocking to hear that there had been forty-two deaths during the voyage, and another hundred were sick. And when the Reverend Johnson went aboard, he reported back that the convicts were lying almost naked in the holds, too sick to move or help themselves.
Mary and Will, along with many other convicts, had come forward willingly to help, but the sights and smells were so awful that many of the volunteers turned tail and ran. Few of the women helpers could stop themselves from crying openly. It was patently obvious that these new arrivals had been half starved and kept below decks for almost the entire voyage. Many of them would never recover.
They had barely got those men washed, fed and under blankets, before the other two ships arrived. The Reverend Johnson went aboard the Scarborough, but was advised by the captain not to go below decks. The terrible stench coming from the holds was enough to deter him, and he didn’t even attempt to board the Neptune.
Tents had hurriedly been erected in front of the hospital, and there was food, water, clothes and medicine in readiness. The night before, as Mary tried to sleep, the smell from the ships at anchor made her stomach heave. It was a hundred times worse than anything she’d experienced on the Dunkirk. Although her heart went out to the poor souls in their suffering, she had felt she couldn’t possibly help again today.
But by dawn, the anger she felt at men putting profit before human life made her strong again. According to conversations she’d overheard between officers, transportation had been put out to private tenders. As the government offered £17 7s 6d a head for rations, the less the convicts were given to eat, the more food the ships’ owners could sell off once they arrived here. If convicts died en route, this made it even more lucrative.
Mary heard one officer comparing the transport owners unfavourably with the slave traders. As he pointed out, at least the traders were motivated to keep the slaves fit and healthy, for the better the condition they were in, the more they could be sold for. There was no such incentive even to keep convicts alive.
‘They say Captain Trail of the Neptune kept them all chained together,’ Will said in a subdued, shocked voice. ‘When one of