Authors: E.V. Thompson
C
ORMORANT
SET SAIL
that evening with a pilot on board to guide the vessel on its way to the open sea and by the
following
morning the women convicts in the forward hold were made aware that the ship had left the shelter of the river banks behind when it heeled over and its movement increased
significantly
.
The vessel’s unpredictable motion provoked a certain amount of feigned hilarity, and not a few bruises, before the novelty of the experience wore off.
When food was handed down to the women one of the sailors chatted to them but he left them with a warning. ‘It won’t be long before you have your irons removed. They’ll be off for all the time we’re at sea and you’ll find Cap’n Leyland is a good skipper, but if you start misbehaving yourselves you’ll have them put back on again and they’ll be kept on until we reach Australia.’
‘Now, what do you think this captain will consider to be “
misbehaving
”? I hope he’s not against women who like to make men happy – particular sailors – like most of us here do.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ grinned the sailor, ‘and I don’t doubt my mates will be too….’
The man’s conversation was cut short by the ship’s mate. A large, burly man he carried a great deal of authority on
Cormorant
and was treated with respect by the members of the crew.
‘Have you fed the women?’ he asked the seaman.
When he received an affirmative reply, he said, ‘Then get back to your duties, there’s work to be done.’
When the sailor had hurried away, the large man called into the hold, ‘Where’s Eliza, she’s wanted up top?’
When Eliza showed herself at the foot of the ladder leading from the hold, the mate said, ‘Get yourself up here, I have orders to take your shackles off and take you to the captain’s wife.’
When he pulled her through the hatchway and she was
standing
unsteadily on the heaving deck, the burly man looked at her and, moved by her age and predicament, said, ‘Agnes has agreed to take you on as her maid for the journey, young ’un, but she’s not going to be an easy mistress. I don’t think she’ll ever be
satisfied
with anything you do, no matter how hard you try. I’ve yet to see her smile at anyone, or anything. But you must try your hardest because life with her will be a damned sight easier than living down in the hold with the other women. Anyway, let’s get your shackles off, it won’t do for you to keep her waiting.’
The ship was pitching and tossing more severely now and the mate grabbed her and pulled her into the lee of a deckhouse as a wave crashed against the ship’s side, sending heavy spray
sweeping
across the deck.
Maintaining a hold on Eliza, the seaman asked, ‘Have you ever been to sea before?’
‘No.’ Eliza was too busy trying to maintain her balance to say any more.
Keeping her in the shelter of the deckhouse, the sailor asked, ‘Why are you being transported? What did you do?’
‘I stole money from the husband of the woman I was working for.’
Another wave crashed against the ship’s side and once more she would have lost her balance had the sailor not been keeping a tight grip on her.
‘Why did you do it?’
‘To get away from him, so he wouldn’t do to me what most of the women back there in the hold can’t wait to have done to them,’ she replied, bitterly.
‘Couldn’t you have just run away and gone back to your family?’
‘I’ve got no family. I’m a workhouse waif.’
The hand on her shoulder tightened in a brief gesture of
sympathy
, ‘I know what it must have been for you, I was brought up in a poorhouse myself….’
Yet another wave crashed against
Cormorant’s
side and, pulling her back into the shelter of the deck-house the sympathetic mate said, ‘We have a beam sea right now and it’s not comfortable but in an hour or two we’ll be turning to run along the Channel, it will be better then. Now, let’s get you to the captain’s cabin and I’ll hand you over to Agnes Leyland. My name’s Jim Macleish and I’m the ship’s mate. Remember the name if you have any problems, I can sort out most things on board
Cormorant
.’
Agnes Leyland was not a good sailor. When Eliza entered the captain’s cabin the motion of the sea tore the door from her hand and it crashed noisily against the bulkhead. Agnes was lying on the bunk, her face grey. Looking up she said, ‘I expected you an hour ago, what have you been doing?’
‘I had to wait to have my shackles taken off … ma’am. Now I’m here is there anything I can get for you?’
‘Not until you’ve changed into some decent clothes. They’re in there.’ Agnes waved a limp arm in the direction of a brass handled door set in the corner of the cabin.
‘Would you like me to fetch you some food – or perhaps something to drink?’ Eliza was finding the movement of the
Cormorant
uncomfortable, but she was not suffering as this woman and many of the convicts were.
‘Don’t even
mention
food to me. Get changed and begin
cleaning
up the cabin … No! Fetch the bowl from over there – Quick!’
Eliza snatched up a bowl from a cabinet, the top of which was fitted with wooden rails, to prevent items placed upon it from falling off with the movement of the ship. Placing it on the bed alongside the groaning and retching woman, she obeyed the waved command to leave her.
From behind the closed door of what had been the captain’s chart room she could hear Agnes being sick. Eliza found satisfaction in the knowledge that the captain’s wife would not be looking to find fault with her while she remained in such a wretched condition.
Emerging from the chart room she wrinkled her nose in
distaste
. Agnes had used the bowl and was now lying back in the bunk, breathing heavily and moaning gently.
Removing the bowl and placing it upon the cabin floor, she said, ‘I’ll take this away and empty it, but first I’ll tuck you in and make you comfortable. When I come back I’ll bring some water with me for you to keep by your side. I won’t be away long.’
Her eyes tightly closed, Agnes nodded weakly and Eliza realised her new mistress would cause her no trouble while the rough weather lasted.
Outside the cabin she met with Captain Leyland who was returning to see how his wife was.
‘She’s not very happy at the moment,’ Eliza said, in answer to his query, ‘but I don’t suppose anyone enjoys being on a ship in this sort of weather.’
After asking Eliza her name and receiving her reply,
Cormorant’s
captain said, ‘We’ll meet up with far worse than this before we reach Australia, this is merely uncomfortable, nothing more. Anyway, we’ll ride easier when we are heading west along the Channel, although the barometer’s dropping, so we can’t expect much of an improvement in the weather just yet, but you don’t seem too affected by it, have you spent time on the water?’
‘The nearest I’ve come to it is falling off a barge I was playing on, into the canal. I must have been about five then, but this weather doesn’t seem to bother me, not as much as it does Mrs Leyland.’
‘She’s never been a good sailor. I couldn’t understand why she wanted to come on this voyage with me, but I suppose she believed life was beginning to pass her by and she wanted to see some of the world. Anyway, I won’t go in and disturb her now. You look after her well on the voyage and I’ll see that you’re taken good care of when we get to Australia. There’s plenty of scope there for a girl who wants to make something of herself – but only if she gets off to a good start.’
Thanking Captain Leyland, Eliza emptied the bowl over the side of the ship and, after cleaning it out, returned to the cabin where Agnes was still lying in the bunk, feeling sorry for herself – although she found the ability to ask Eliza why she had been away from the cabin for so long.
Eliza explained that she had met up with the captain who had been on his way to check up on his wife’s well-being and she had been able to reassure him that although feeling very unwell, she was tucked up and warm and, as her maid, she would attend to her every need. Eliza added that the ship would be altering course soon and its movements would then be more comfortable to contend with.
Not fully placated, Agnes was able to find sufficient strength to tell Eliza she had been brought from the convict hold to assist
her
and not spend her time gossiping with others. She reminded her once again that the degree of freedom she would enjoy on the voyage depended upon carrying out duties to
her
in a satisfactory manner.
Little more than an hour later
Cormorant
turned into the English Channel and with the wind behind it conditions became a little easier for those on board.
Agnes fell into an exhausted sleep and Eliza busied herself about the cabin, at the same time wondering what life would hold for her onboard
Cormorant
. She had already decided she liked Captain Leyland a lot more than she did his acerbic wife.
D
ESPITE THE FORECAST
of the captain and mate of
Cormorant
the second day of the voyage was no smoother than the first had been. Agnes Leyland rose from her bunk and dressed but did not venture outside the cabin and seemed content to eat little more than dry bread and drink only water, supplemented at the end of the day with a couple of tots of brandy.
Nevertheless, she felt fit enough to criticise much of what Eliza did for her. Aware that his wife’s criticism was unjustified, Captain Leyland took Eliza aside and assured her there was nothing wrong with her standard of work. He suggested it was the continuing bad weather that was the cause of his wife’s
irritability
.
Eliza was grateful to him for at least troubling to make an attempt to explain away his wife’s ingratitude for all that was being done for her. At the same time she realised that Agnes was by nature a difficult woman.
Although Eliza was relieved to be separated from the other convicts she believed that the voyage to Australia, which would take at the very least three months, might seem even longer.
Her only bright moment came when she was sent on an errand from the cabin and met up with Jim Macleish, the burly elderly mate who had befriended her from the beginning of the voyage. A fatherly figure, he had served with Captain Leyland for many
years. Having known Agnes too for as long as she and the ship’s captain had been married, he was well aware of her shortcomings.
Macleish told Eliza that
Cormorant
would be leaving the English Channel behind sometime during the next night and heading out into the Atlantic. He said the barometer was
dropping
, an indication of more bad weather to come, adding that it would probably result in Agnes Leyland being laid low once more.
Sure enough, when the ship cleared the English Channel after dark and turned on to a southerly course, those on board began to feel the effect of the powerful waves sweeping in from the
vastness
of the Atlantic Ocean.
Agnes showed little sign of acquiring ‘sea legs’ and after
complaining
bitterly about the instability of her husband’s ship took to her bunk and soon fell into a sleep induced by a considerable amount of brandy.
Captain Leyland was seated at his desk writing up the ship’s log, while at his suggestion Eliza was stowing away everything that could be dislodged if the weather deteriorated any more, when a rain and spray-soaked mate entered the cabin after only a cursory knock.
With water dripping from his oilskins on to the wooden decking Macleish glanced at the still figure in the bunk then, his voice lowered said, ‘I thought I should tell you, Cap’n, the
barometer’s
gone crazy and pressure has almost dropped off the scale. Something big is on the way and I’m worried about
Cormorant
being able to cope with it on our planned course. The swell is increasing too and if it gets any rougher we’ll be in very real danger of rolling over.’
Walking to where a barometer was screwed to the bulkhead of the cabin, Captain Leyland tapped the instrument’s glass with a forefinger and the pointer immediately dropped in an anti-
clockwise
direction.
‘Damn! I should have remembered the pointer has a habit of sticking. You’re right, Jim, it’s fallen dramatically since I last checked it. We’re in for a really bad storm. What do you think we ought to do, take in all sail, put out a sea anchor and ride it out?’
The concerned mate drew the back of his hand across his
forehead
to clear some of the water that was running down into his eyes, ‘I think we need to do more than that, Cap’n, I’ve never seen such an alarming drop in the barometer in all my time at sea.’
Captain Leyland had known Jim Macleish for many years and was aware the mate was not a man prone to over-dramatising a situation. ‘Are you suggesting we should turn and run for safety, Jim?’
‘If we don’t – and leave it any longer – it might be too late. We’d turn turtle. As it is we’ll need to choose our moment very
carefully
.’
Convinced by the mate’s words, Captain Leyland said, ‘Right, Jim, call all hands on deck. We’ll use the wind to help us turn, but too much sail and we’ll go over anyway. God knows where we’re likely to find shelter in this weather, but we need to try.’
‘Falmouth would be the best bet,’ Macleish said, ‘but this wind and sea is likely to send us north of Land’s End. That leaves only the
north
Cornish coast and I’d rather keep well clear of that in such weather.’
While the two men were having their discussion
Cormorant’s
captain had been putting on his oilskins. Now he turned to Eliza, ‘Secure anything that could possibly fall – then stay by Mrs Leyland and make sure she doesn’t fall out of the bunk.
Cormorant
will be all over the place while we are changing course.’
Eliza had been listening wide-eyed to the conversation of the two men. It frightened her, and Macleish was aware of her fear. Speaking to her reassuringly, he said, ‘Don’t worry, Eliza, it’s going to be very uncomfortable for a while but
Cormorant’s
a fine ship, we’ll make it …’
At that moment another wave crashed down upon them and the ship rose slowly from beneath the many tons of sea water, shuddering alarmingly as it shook off the water in the manner of a wet and ageing terrier.
‘I’d better get the men up on deck,’ Macleish said.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said the ship’s captain. Pausing at the door he spoke to Eliza again. ‘Remember what I said. Don’t leave the cabin – and make certain Mrs Leyland remains here too.’
For the next few minutes Eliza worked feverishly to complete the task of securing moveable objects, jamming them wherever she could find space in cupboards or drawers. The erratic movements of
Cormorant
did not help her task and she lost count of the times she was thrown off balance and fell heavily against cabin furniture.
She thought her body would collect a great many bruises by the time the storm was over but fervently believed that if it suffered no more than bruises she would have reason to be grateful.
Eliza was amazed that Agnes Leyland was sleeping through the turbulence, but the bunk she was in had high sides to prevent her being pitched out and she had been exhausted by her long bout of sea sickness. This, coupled with the brandy she had drunk, had left her in a state of near unconsciousness.
It seemed a long time before there was any relief at all in the ship’s movements, in fact, Eliza felt it was actually worsening. Meanwhile, on deck Macleish, with another seaman, had joined the coxswain at the ship’s wheel, standing by to help when the rudder needed to be put hard over, fighting wind and sea for the 180 degree turn that would set the ship on a course towards the Cornish coast.
At last Captain Leyland discerned a momentary lull in the ferocity of the storm and gave the order to turn the ship about.
Every available man hauled desperately on ropes to change the configuration of the few sails that were set, while mate, coxswain
and their helper heaved on the ship’s wheel, which in turn moved the rudder to challenge the might of the sea.
For long moments it appeared their combined efforts would be in vain then, as the ship’s bow rose on a wave,
Cormorant
suddenly
heeled over, tilting so far the sailors on board feared it was about to capsize, but the ship successfully rode the wave, the stern slewing around as it slithered into a deep trough – and
Cormorant
righted itself.
The progress of the vessel was still influenced by the ceaseless motion of the sea combined with the fury of the wind but to those on board it felt less violent and, above the noise of the storm, Eliza thought she heard a cheer from the crew on the deck above the captain’s cabin.
It was another half-an-hour before Captain Leyland returned to the cabin, water streaming from his oilskin and long sea-boots.
‘Is everything all right now?’ Eliza asked anxiously, ‘Are we safe?’
‘We can’t congratulate ourselves yet,’ Leyland replied, ‘although we’re running with the storm now, so things on board should be a little more comfortable for a while, but before dawn we’re going to be dangerously close to the coast without knowing exactly where we are. Still, we’ll tackle that problem when the need arises. Is everything all right down here?’
Eliza nodded, ‘Mrs Leyland half-woke when the ship turned, but she didn’t stay awake for very long. She’s fast asleep again now.’
‘Good girl. You go and try to get some sleep now and I’ll do the same. I’ll be woken and on deck before dawn and call you then, so that you’re up and about when Mrs Leyland wakes.’