SHE LISTENS TO A CONVERSATION
All the time I was in the cuddy that day, whilst the captain and
officers lunched, I kept my ears open, supposing that the talk would
wholly concern the dreadful, tragic incident of the morning. But no
man said a word on the subject. Perhaps they had talked it out before
they came to the table, or perhaps they would not speak of it before
me and the other stewards. I was greatly disappointed. I wanted to
hear that the sentry had exceeded his instructions and was to be
severely punished. It was horrible that a man should be empowered to
shoot down a fellow-creature as the sentry shot down the poor mad
actor. I had hoped that Captain Sutherland, whose heart was a British
sailor’s, would ask the doctor and the officers why a sentry should
be instructed to fire at a man for no worse crime than scaling a
barricade and climbing on to the bulwarks of the ship. To kill a man
for so behaving might be all very well in harbour, where a convict
could contrive to swim ashore. But what dream of liberty could visit
an unhappy wretch in mid-ocean, unless it were the freedom that death
provides? And why should a convict be shot for attempting suicide? Out
of mercy, that his blood might be upon the head of another instead of
on his own?
The cool chatter of the officers upon light, frivolous topics filled
me with wrath. I wanted to hear them talk of the shooting of the
madman. But nothing was said. No reference was made to that strange,
threatening stir which had been visible amongst the convicts, like the
passing of a sudden darkness over a waving field of grain. The doctor
was very stern. He ate little and talked seldom. Only once did I catch
the least allusion to that morning’s bloody business. I was coming up
from the pantry with some glasses, when I heard Captain Sutherland
say, ‘By-the-by, how is the man that was knocked down?’
‘All right again,’ answered the doctor.
‘He lay like a corpse,’ said the captain.
‘He was stunned,’ said the doctor. And then Captain Barrett spoke, and
the subject was changed.
I went forward that night after dark, when my work was done, knowing
it was Will’s watch below, and wishful for a chat with him. He lay,
smoking, upon a chest in his cabin, and an apprentice swung overhead in
a hammock, with one leg dangling down. I could not converse before that
fellow up there, though nothing would have been thought had I entered
and sat down beside Will, for it was gone about that he knew me through
his father having had mine for a client.
He saw me by the light of the slush lamp that sootily burned against
the bulkhead near the door, nodded, and, filling his pipe afresh,
lighted it and lounged out. We leaned against the ship’s galley to
leeward, where all was quiet.
‘What have you to tell me about this morning’s fearful job?’ said I.
‘A sweet experience for you, my honey,’ said he. ‘See what’s to be
learned by stowing oneself away in a convict ship.’
‘What will they do to the soldier who killed the man?’
‘Do to him? Give him a stripe to wear on his arm when they get ashore.’
‘It was a brutal murder!’ I exclaimed.
‘You say that because your sympathies are below. Duty’s no murder. The
man obeyed orders, and very right orders they are. Let me tell you,
my daisy, there’s a very considerable slice of hell stowed away under
hatches in this ship; and if it wasn’t for the guffies, there’d be such
a blaze as ’ud make you, for one, wish Stepney were closer aboard than
it is.’
‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said I, ‘that twenty soldiers in command
of half a man and a puppy can keep two hundred and thirty desperate,
fearless, crime-hardened ruffians under?’
‘Two hundred and thirty! That figure counts Butler as one of the
beauties, eh?’ said he, laughing. ‘But I answer yes; twenty soldiers
can do it, backed, of course, by our machinery of barricades, manholes,
and the rest of it, not to mention a moral influence that counts more
usefully than a great gun loaded chock-a-block with scissors and
thumbscrews.’
‘If those convicts had found a leader to-day,’ said I, ‘they would have
seized the ship.’
He turned his head about in the gloom to see if anybody was near.
‘Seize the ship!’ he exclaimed with a little snort of contempt. ‘With a
file of soldiers splendidly placed ready to fire amongst the devils as
fast as they could load! With three sentries in addition to help! With
officers and a crew ready to support the soldiers! But, hang me,’ said
he, with a change of voice and peering close into my face to catch a
sight of me, ‘if I don’t think you’re sorry the ship wasn’t seized!’
‘I wish you didn’t excuse the diabolical murder. I’d shoot that sentry
with my own hand for killing a poor, unhappy madman goaded into
insanity, for all you know, by an unjust sentence. It might have been
Tom. Suppose Tom’s heart broke and his mind went? A soldier would shoot
him!’
‘D’ye know you hiss when you talk? I used to like your spirit, but love
is making a tigress of you. You make a fellow afraid?’
But I had not come to talk with him to do that. I wanted news, and he
had none; and I had no idea of scaring or disgusting the dear lad by
causing him to fancy that my sympathies were with the felons under
hatches when I had a heart but for one man only in the whole world.
Will was just the sort of lad to betray me that I might not come
to harm or harm others; so, after laughing at his likening me to a
tigress, I talked of Stepney and his father’s house near the Tower,
and in a few minutes the pair of us were happy in old, kind, gentle
memories.
He grew a little inquisitive presently, however, and asked me some
questions.
‘Have you thought of what you mean to do when you arrive at Hobart
Town?’
‘I shall be guided entirely by what is done with Tom,’ I answered.
‘Shall you settle in Tasmania?’
‘Somewhere in that part of the world,’ I said. ‘Once a convict, always
a convict. I know Tom and his proud heart; if his innocence could be
established on his arrival and liberty given to him, he’d not return
home. He hates England--I’ll swear it. And I hate home for his sake.’
‘You’ll sell your house in Stepney, I suppose!’
‘Yes, I may do that. There’s much I may do. I shall be guided by what
befalls Tom. I have money enough to establish ourselves in comfort. We
shall want for nothing in our new home.’
‘Maybe I shall turn squatter, myself,’ said Will. ‘There’s a big thing
to be done in wool. But give me New South Wales. I wish they had sent
Butler there. What’s become of the _Arab Chief_, I wonder? And does he
lose all the money he invested in her?’
‘No,’ said I.
Here some seamen came and lolled alongside of us; we could talk no
more, so I went aft.
All next day the doctor was full of business. I heard him tell the
captain at the breakfast-table what the routine was to be: at half-past
eight prayers and a portion of the Scriptures were to be read to the
prisoners in divisions, some below, some on deck, as the weather
might permit; then schools were to be formed, but this could not be
done until the doctor had ascertained the ability of the prisoners to
read--he needed time to put a book into each man’s hand to test him.
Every school would consist of nine or ten pupils; schoolmasters would
be selected from the best educated of the convicts. School would be
held morning and afternoon; after supper, at four o’clock, the doctor
would regularly deliver a lecture on any subject likely to improve and
enlighten his hearers.
You’ll suppose he was a busy man. Indeed! he had a hundred things to
see to. Besides the schools, the lectures and the like, exercise had to
be arranged for, the washing of linen, airing of bedding and so forth.
Then there was the hospital to visit, troublesome convicts to examine
and punish, a journal to write up, and I know not what besides. This,
the first Monday of fine weather and freedom of irons, was spent by
him in planning the convict routine for the voyage. I collected from
his talk at the table that the prisoners were very quiet, and looking
forward with interest to the educational work he was cutting out for
them. He told Captain Sutherland he had addressed them below very
seriously on the Sunday morning’s tragic business; in fact at lunch he
spoke out without reserve.
‘I was impressed,’ said he, ‘by the thoughtful looks of many of the
unhappy people when I bade them accept the death of the poor, miserable
man Garth as an awful warning--not in respect of discipline, not in
respect of the penalty that attaches to insubordination, but in regard
to their souls’ health.’ And then he occupied ten minutes in repeating
what he had said to the convicts. Lieutenant Chimmo hemmed and tried
to break through the dull prosing; but the doctor loved his own
eloquence too well to let his companions off a single sentence that he
could recollect. ‘I believe,’ said he, ‘that there is some good in that
man Barney Abram, after all. I observed that he was very attentive at
Divine service yesterday.’
‘But he is not of your persuasion, surely?’ said Captain Sutherland.
‘He’s of the persuasion of them all,’ answered the doctor.
‘The persuasion that has the devil for high priest, eh, Ellice?’ said
Captain Barrett.
‘That’s so,’ said the doctor. ‘Barney Abram is a man I should be proud
and thankful to bring over. He was a very bad lot at home. This ship
might not hold all the wretches he has tempted and ruined. Yet I seemed
to find an expression of contrition in the fellow’s face, a softening
look as though he might not prove so inaccessible as I had feared. He
asked leave to speak to me before I came up from below this morning,
and I was gratified to understand that his object was to thank me for
the remarks I had offered to the prisoners on the subject of the sudden
appalling death of Garth.’
Captain Barrett burst into one of his great laughs, for which he
apologised by saying that he was thinking of a story he had heard of
Barney; it was not fit to repeat, however.
‘Then, sir,’ said the doctor, sternly, ‘we’ll not trouble you for it.’
‘Whisper,’ said the subaltern, side-long, to his brother-officer.
‘Have you given the prize-fighter any sort of appointment, doctor?’
said Captain Sutherland.
‘Not yet. I have my eye on him. His immense strength will make him
useful. He may end as my first captain. Had he stood near the madman,
the poor fellow would now be alive. Abram is, perhaps, the only man in
the ship who could have grasped and held him.’
He then talked of his schools. His head was full of the thing. I
learned, through listening, that the Admiralty instructions provided
for the establishment of schools and religious teaching.
After the doctor had made all his arrangements on this Monday, nothing
happened of any consequence that I can recall for some time. We carried
a strong north-east trade-wind, and we drove along by day and by night,
with foam sometimes lifting to the cathead. There was scarcely need
to handle a rope, so fresh and steady was the trade-wind, with its
wool-white clouds scattering like sheep down the sky and the horizon
bright and hard and blue in the windy distance. At times I caught sight
of Tom. The intervals were wide, and I never found an opportunity
to breathe so much as a syllable of love to him. And this was very
well. It was enough that he knew I was on board, and that we were
able sometimes to see each other. I never attempted to write a second
letter. The risk of delivering it was too great, and I was resolved to
run no risks, lest some act that would add nothing to Tom’s happiness
nor mine should betray me and extinguish my hopes, nay, slay my chance
of reaching Tasmania with him in the same ship.
Sometimes I feared my sex was dimly suspected, but mainly my mind
was at rest on that score. The persons I was afraid of were the two
military men and the German steward. The idea of my being a woman, I
am sure, never entered the doctor’s mind. Had he entertained the least
suspicion, he was just the man to settle it out of hand by sending me
down among the soldiers’ wives to be examined. And yet, when I peeped
at myself in one of the long cuddy mirrors, I’d wonder at the success
of my masquerade. I repeat here that I was a very fine figure of a
woman. In none of the points which are admirable in the equipment of
the best shaped of my sex was I lacking. Yet it is certain that my
impersonation was perfect, and that, if I except the three men I have
named, there was not a man in the ship who by looks or speech caused me
the least anxiety.
However, to provide against the reasons of my being on board becoming
known, should detection of my sex happen unexpectedly, I sought out
Will one evening, and had a long, earnest chat with him. I put it to
him thus:
‘You are supposed to know me; that is to say, you are supposed to know
that I am the son of a man who was a client of your father. Suddenly
I am discovered to be a girl. The captain sends for you, and you are
challenged in the presence of the doctor. What will you say?’
‘That’s where it is,’ said he. ‘Make one false step, and ten to one if
you’re not presently up to your neck.’
He scratched his head and mused, staring at me. I would not help him. I
wished to test the quality of his wits in case he should be challenged
as I have said. After a bit, he exclaimed:
‘I should disown all knowledge of you.’
‘That’s good,’ said I.
‘I’d say you told me your name was Simon Marlowe and that your father
was a client of my father’s. I should tell no lie by owning I believed
the story, because, you see, uncle was a client of the dad’s. Well,’
he went on, ‘I should tell them that now you proved to be a girl, you
weren’t the young fellow I took you for, and I should call you a liar
and disown all knowledge of you.’
‘And in saying so you’d be strictly speaking the truth, so far as Simon
Marlowe is concerned,’ said I, rejoiced to find him so ready. ‘You’ll
disown me. You’ll call me a liar. You’ll know nothing whatever about
me. That’ll be the programme, Will, should you be called upon.’
We stood discussing the matter some time, and then separated, but I was
mightily glad to have had this talk with him.