The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [89]
Under the guise of the Transportation Act, it was time to dispose of another mother and child. For today, they were together, and that was all that mattered. The launch glided steadily toward the waiting Hindostan; the river fell hauntingly silent save for the screaming of the gulls and the sound of oars splashing the water. Arabella clung closely to her mother’s sleeve. Ludlow lifted her arm and slipped her precious cargo underneath the chains and next to her breast. Like a mother bear, she grew more protective the instant the skiff bumped up against the gangplank they’d soon scale to board the Hindostan. She watched a group of sailors hanging over the rail of the tall-masted ship. Many of them didn’t look much older than Arabella. Midshipmen, known as “the young gentlemen,” were sent to sea at age twelve or thirteen. Away from home for years at a time, some turned to matrons like Ludlow when they needed comfort from a surrogate mother. Like Agnes McMillan, many of the child sailors were abandoned by their parents and left to fend for themselves.
The Hindostan looked serenely elegant as she slumbered, safe and calm in the river, quietly masking her identity as a transport vessel. Once on board, Arabella in tow, Ludlow was ushered by a Navy officer to the smith. As the rivets were removed from her irons, the wily widow wasted no time in assessing the ship’s true personality. Tangled ropes, pungent pine tar, open hatches, and confusing passages harkened chaos and unpredictable danger. She would not let her daughter out of sight, not even for a minute. Arabella, on the other hand, studied with fascination the new surroundings, which were causing her mother’s brow to crinkle.
This day, a motley crew had blown in from Newgate. On the upper deck, the newest arrivals for transport formed a line in front of Surgeon Superintendent Thomas McDonald. Ann Price, #177 from Limerick, was first, and she didn’t look well at all. Her jet-black eyebrows accentuated her sallow complexion and made her appear angry and gaunt.3 By her knees, her four-year-old daughter, Jane, clung to her mother’s shift as a detached McDonald recorded that the twenty-five-year-old had left behind a husband and two older children.4 Mary Grady, #221, checked in behind her friend and co-conspirator, with whom she’d stolen two sets of stays. She was the smallest of this Newgate contingent at four feet, ten inches tall.5
Mary Sullivan, #374, was measured next—four feet, eleven inches tall and forty-six years old, about the same age as Ludlow.6 She looked much older, however, with her greying hair and protruding front teeth. Thirty-four-year-old #339, Hannah Herbert, appeared aged beyond her years, having lost her front teeth.7 Decayed or missing teeth were common throughout the general population, but even more so for the poor. Careful not to smear the ink, Surgeon Superintendent McDonald recorded one more perfunctory notation in his oversized black ledger. Yet when forty-eight-year-old Amy Wilson stepped forward, the normally unflappable officer must have caught himself staring. Amy was missing her left eye and had a pink fleshy mole on her left cheek. Poverty had taken its toll on the mother of two, who was being transported for stealing a plate after her husband deserted the family.8
With impeccable posture, no disfiguring marks, and a calm demeanor, Ludlow Tedder stood out from her ragged cell mates. Arabella’s mother was no fool, already attentive to who made decisions about food, water, and protection aboard the Hindostan. Being able to read and write surely accorded her special notice, so Ludlow seized the limelight when it was her turn to be processed by Surgeon Superintendent McDonald. During his examination,