I took care to hold the letter in the palm of my hand, in the hope that I should meet Tom as I went or returned. A batch of about fifty convicts, stripped to the waist, were washing themselves on the port side of the main-deck, close against the barricade of the gangway alley. The doctor stood, viewing them, at a little distance. Two or three ‘captains’ walked to and fro, to observe that the men washed themselves properly. Seeing no other convicts on deck, I went along the gangway alley, and with my head straight, but with my eyes in the corner that the doctor might not detect my scrutiny, I narrowly viewed the convicts as I stepped forward, but Tom was not of that gang.
On coming, however, abreast of the prisoners’ galley, I saw my sweetheart inside. I did not notice what he was about. No doubt he had been told off to help the cooks that morning, or maybe he was there on some errand relating to his mess. Be this as it may, I saw him in an instant, and formed my resolution in a single beat of my heart. I coughed. The note of my cough made him turn his head. Even whilst our eyes met I entered the galley in which he stood.
‘Here, cook,’ said I, ‘the steward says——’ I started as though I had discovered my error. ‘I beg pardon for mistaking the galley,’ said I, and in turning, as though to leave, I purposely struck my foot against the coaming of the door, fell a step backward, and let fall the dish and the bacon. The dish was of tin: had it been crockery I should have let it fall all the same, though the noise of the breakage might have brought the doctor to the door. Tom stooped to pick up the bacon; our fingers touched, and I slipped the letter into his hand.
This was admirably done; the swiftness of the manœuvre renders it one of the most memorable of my exploits in this way. I had feared that Tom would not understand in time to render the trick successful, but the moment he felt the letter his hand closed upon it. I did not look at him or attempt to breathe a syllable, though our faces were close when we stooped. I could not tell who besides Tom was in that galley: there were several persons, convicts no doubt, men whose behaviour in the hulks had warranted the doctor in giving them posts of some little consequence and trust. All had happened so quickly, that I could not say whether the others besides Tom were clothed as felons or not.
This convicts’ galley, I should explain, was a temporary deck structure, built strongly abaft the ship’s galley, furnished with an abundant cooking apparatus, as you may suppose would be needed for the feeding of two hundred and thirty souls. None of the crew were suffered to enter it; it was sentinelled by convict warders or captains only. It was inspected every day by the doctor, and closed and locked when the convicts’ supper had been handed along.
I came out of the ship’s galley with a rejoicing heart, and peeped at the door of the other as I passed, but Tom was not in sight. However, he now had my letter; no risk had been run, not the most suspicious mind, not the most vigilant eye in the ship, could have imagined or detected what had passed between my sweetheart and me. My spirits were in a dance; for my letter would tell him as much—as much to the point, I mean—as my lips could have uttered in a half-hour’s meeting. I figured his impatience to read it, the glow of hope and pleasure that would warm his poor, dear heart as he read, the courage and support he would get out of it.
‘You vhas light-hearted this morning,’ said Frank to me, as we helped the steward to prepare the breakfast-table. ‘Dere vhas no twopenny postman at sea, or I should say dot you hov’ received some goodt news.’
‘It is the weather,’ I answered; ‘and then a young apprentice has kindly given me a clean flannel shirt to wear.’
‘Who’s the apprentice?’ exclaimed Mr. Stiles, who overheard me.
‘Mr. Johnstone,’ I answered.