The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [93]
By the time the Hindostan crossed the equator, Ludlow had witnessed most every form of physical and mental malady. At the onset of the voyage, women battling alcohol withdrawal suffered tremors and delirium. In desperation, some offered their bodies to the crew in exchange for liquor and a return to hazy comfort. Others defaulted into abstinence, slowly and painfully unmasking both sobriety and the frightening reality of transport.
Captain Lamb would tolerate no troublemakers at sea. Two tiny cells, squeezed under the ship’s bow, were reserved for solitary confinement and contained those deemed unruly, regardless of the cause. As their destination drew closer, incidents of panic and hysteria escalated throughout the women’s claustrophobic quarters. Sometimes the penetrating pressure of the unknown was too much and drove women over the edge and into madness. Victorian medicine ignored the possibility of treating mental illness, deeming it fake or incurable. Physical restraint by ropes or straitjacket was generally the only remedy prescribed.
Cabin fever, depression, rape by sailors, and outbursts from the mentally ill were conditions for which Surgeon Superintendent McDonald had not been trained. Even if Nurse Tedder wanted to intervene, she had first to consider Arabella and her safety. Heading through the Indian Ocean, the criminally insane were sometimes seen banging their heads against the ship’s rail, mimicking the rhythmic pattern of crashing waves.
During the final push eastward through the Indian Ocean, Ludlow witnessed another type of high seas drama when an emigrant ship named the Cornwall raised a flag of distress. It had departed from Graves-end, England, on May 12, three days after the Hindostan, and had followed the same route around the Cape of Good Hope on its approach to Sydney. Responding to the Cornwall’s signal, Captain Lamb dispatched a whaleboat with several officers, including Surgeon Superintendent McDonald and perhaps Ludlow, because she was now his competent and trusted nurse.
The Cornwall’s Captain John Cow asked Mr. McDonald to examine Surgeon Superintendent King, who had fallen ill amid a very rough trip. Under his watch, eighteen passengers had died, most from scarlet fever and rubella. Returning to the Hindostan, McDonald “declared Dr. King to be in no serious condition. . . . [He] was very apprehensive however and refused to take the powerful sedative prescribed. He nervously walked the deck all night in the company of the captain and mate. By the next day his ‘nervousness’ had abated.”11
Surgeon McDonald also examined the Cornwall’s emigrants, “whom he pronounced to be in much better state of health than the convicts on board the Hindostan.”12 Although he and Nurse Tedder had lost only one patient, many were barely standing. Both women and children were weakened by an array of ailments made worse by poor nutrition and miserably overcrowded conditions, not to mention the “cures.”
On Wednesday, September 11, 1839, the Hindostan glided into Sullivans Cove and set anchor at the far southeast coast along Van Diemen’s Land. With the seasons occurring in reverse from the Northern Hemisphere, the autumnal equinox signaled the beginning of spring, and the air smelled of new blossoms and fresh leaves. This was the same day Agnes McMillan turned nineteen, stuck in Oatlands, more than fifty miles away from Hobart Town at the island’s interior. A full year would pass before Agnes would meet Ludlow inside Cascades.
None the worse for wear, Ludlow and Arabella finally landed in Van Diemen’s Land 126 days after their journey began. In the eyes of colonists and male convicts, another boatload of “strumpets” had arrived, arousing Hobart Town to a state of pitched anticipation. Bear grease, talc, and witch hazel were brought out from dusty cases and smeared over the men’s unwashed bodies. Surely the overeager onlookers