Where was he?
She closed her eyes and she could see the gentle stream flowing through the village and she drifted asleep.
She awoke and he was asleep beside her and it was calm. She lay still in the narrow bunk and listened to the creaking of the ships timbers and the distant wash of the sea. Day? Day what? One hundred and four. She couldn't be sure.
The lieutenant would know. He had a diary, beautifully bound in red leather, with his initials scrolled in gold on the cover. Inside the cover there was a short note from his father, saying that he should keep his diary up to date, for one day it could become part of history. And her lieutenant followed the instructions to the letter - he wrote every day, in a tiny and precise hand. She would have liked to have been able to read it, but she could only recognise words here and there, including her own name.
Initially she had religiously kept track of each day. From the three days waiting in Plymouth, waiting for the Lady of Bodmin to take on board all the supplies and the convicts. Two hundred and fifty of them, the lieutenant had told her and a guard of soldiers. There was supposed to have been fifty soldiers, but not all had turned up. At the last minute there had been a change in orders, and five of them had deserted and never reported for duty.
England's shores had scarce drifted below the horizon when all of the convicts were mustered on the deck. It had been a surprisingly clear day and Sarah had stood with the other thirty-odd women convicts, separated from the males. Off to one side of the ship she could just make out land. France? Spain? She had no idea of distance or the distances they may have travelled. The lieutenant had later told her that the trip would take up to 150 days. It would depend a lot on the weather, and they would stop at the Cape of Good Hope for supplies.
The Cape? An unknown place in the world. Good Hope? Not for her and the others milling around her.
Two men had stood on a raised part of the deck watching over them as others moved among them and removed their chains. The soldier working on Sarah's chains had run his hand over her ankle and then shot it up her skirt and she had screamed and jumped away and the soldier had laughed, as had the women around her. Five or six of the women had already formed relationships with some of the soldiers and she had already refused one suggestion. She had woken in the night and the same soldier had been beside her and he'd whispered in her ear and she had blushed and pushed him away and he'd gone off, chuckling to himself. She had felt dirty and the loneliness and the fear were crushing her and she sobbed herself back to sleep.
One of the men had said that the chains would stay off as long as everyone behaved themselves. They were to follow the routines that had been set up; they would obey the orders of the soldiers and of the crew. If there was any thieving, any insubordination, or any other offence, then the chains would be used.
She had found out later that the man was the captain. Captain Crowe, her lieutenant had said, and the owners and the government looked to him to get the vessel to its destination safely. The surgeon, a man called Dalrymple, had the job of looking after the convicts. The lieutenant had told her that the surgeon was paid by the navy, but that he was paid an amount for each convict that he delivered in good health at the end of the voyage. A worthy incentive to ensure all convicts were well looked after and not ill-treated: he had been the other man watching the chains come off.
There were separate quarters for the male and female convicts and both were cut-off from the rest of the ship by a bulkhead. Daily, they were allowed up on deck for exercise, under the watchful eye of the soldiers. Some of the freemen travelling with them would watch with curious stares. Sarah herself had watched the other women convicts, especially those who had been taken under the wing of a soldier or another man. They seemed happy enough and they had little privileges - a bit more to eat and drink, some security.
Sarah had succumbed to the lieutenant within ten days of leaving Plymouth.
There were ships biscuits, salted meat, flour and soup and tea and occasionally there was rice or sago. There was limejuice or a small quantity of wine - for the scurvy, the surgeon had said. Although the quarters were clean the soldiers had better conditions, the officers more so, and she ate better and the lieutenant bedded her without others watching while he did so.
Some of the male convicts were regarded as being good enough to perform jobs on the ship - some worked as cooks, sweepers and deckhands. There was a small group of freemen, travelling to the new colony to start afresh or to join family already there. One or two were wives of convicts serving sentences in Australia. Some of the soldiers had families with them.
Sarah counted each day as it passed. The sea around them was unchanging for days at a time, gentle and blue, the wind filling the sails and pushing them along. Then there were days and nights of storms. One day after the next, no different from the last or the one to come.
One day a man was found to have stolen from a fellow convict and he was flogged on deck in front of all the others and Sarah had turned away as he had screamed and his back had turned red, then strips of skin hung in the blood and he had fainted.
She drew comfort from the lieutenant. Security. More than once in the last week he had talked about keeping her with him when they reached Van Diemans Land. He would be able to arrange it, he was sure.
"What are you thinking about, lass?"
Her sentence.
"Nothing," she answered. "I was just listening to the creak of the wood and the sound of the water. It's calmer today."
"Yes. The storm is over, I think. The captain tells me that storms are quite commonplace in these waters. There may be more before we reach landfall."
"I hope not," she said.
Landfall? What was Hobart going to be like?
He pulled the sheet back from her and ran his hand over her shoulders and breasts. She watched his face. He was, she reasoned, a handsome man, dark hair tightly curled, long at the back of his neck, with long sideburns, a bushy black moustache that had tickled her, like her father's, that, at times, rasped her soft skin, even now as he ran his mouth over her breasts. His eyes were a deep blue and it was these, apart from his strong arms, when he wrapped them around her, which gave her the most security; they had a warmth in them that she saw only when he was with her. When he was with his men his eyes were clear, calm and officious.
There were times when she thought him to be well born. He had a vast knowledge and spoke well, he told her stories of his time in a town called Kettering, and his hands, now drifting lazily over her thighs, seemed to have never done any extended manual work. From some of his comments, he would appear to have some independent means.
Lieutenant Harry Abbotsley.
There were worse prospects for her future, she thought. Perhaps, if he was right and he could make arrangements for her, it would be better than the unknown. What was the life of a convict like in this place at the end of the world? As her mother was fond of saying, better the devil you know, my girl, than the one unseen around the corner.
On landing in Hobart, Abbotsley had reported immediately to Major Pollard.
"You'll be going to Macquarie Harbour," the Major said simply.
"Where, sir?" Abbotsley asked.
"Macquarie Harbour, Lieutenant."
The Major looked at the Lieutenant. There was a mixture of innocence and experience in his face. His eyes showed a certain determination. This accursed island would make or mould the young lieutenant, he thought. Even more so, the hell that he was sending him to - Macquarie Harbour.
"I don't ..."
"Macquarie Harbour is on the west coast of the island, Lieutenant," Pollard said slowly and deliberately. "It was set-up as a penal settlement by Governor Sorell in 1822, when we were still part of the colony of New South Wales. It was named after Governor Macquarie."
"Is there some reason why I am to be assigned there, sir?" Abbotsley