The routine, I observed, was the same as on other days. The convict deck-washers, superintended by the captains of deck, helped the watch to wash down as usual; the cooks were admitted past the sentry, and speedily a cloud of black smoke was blowing from the prisoners’ galley chimney. When the decks had been swabbed, the convicts in divisions were turned up to wash themselves, and at eight o’clock they went to breakfast.
It was whilst the messmen were standing in a compact row beyond the main-hatch door waiting for their cans of cocoa, that I saw Tom. He was one of the messmen. I found an excuse to pass him thrice, that I might greet him with my eyes and observe him. I saw passion and grief and love in his face when our gaze met, though neither of us durst venture on more than a passing look. It half broke my heart that I should be so close to him and yet unable to speak. Whilst he waited with the rest I could, indeed, have made shift to pass him a fourth time, but the strain was so terrible that I feared myself. I felt a swelling within me as of hysteria, an ungovernable madness to rush to him, to fling my arms about his neck, to hold him to me. So I passed into the cuddy, and a little later the body of prisoners went below and, saving the sentries, the inclosure was empty.
After the cuddy breakfast was over, whilst taking some dirty dishes forward, I met Will near the galley. He said, softly: ‘I was on the poop watching you when you walked up and down past Butler to look at him. Old woman, these are risks and you mustn’t run ’m. There are eyes aboard here sharper than that chap’s bayonet.’
‘I’ll run no risks, and all’s well so far, Will.’
‘What about that letter you were telling me of? I dread to hear of your attempting to give it to your sweetheart.’
I looked at him with a smile. He asked me if I slept comfortably, if his clothes fitted me, if I had seen the prisoner boxed up and washed down yesterday, and so on. ‘You’ll be up on the poop for prayers at four bells,’ said he. ‘Lord!’ he added, bursting into a nervous laugh. ‘To think of only two in this ship knowing what you are! To think of you, a young man as habit is bringing me to fancy you, being the real and original Marian of the milk and buttercup holiday times! What would mother say to see you as you stand here now, as complete a shell-back to the eye as that second mate there, with a big basket of dirty dishes alongside of you lugged all the way from the cuddy by your own little hands? And all for love—all for love! By glory! But the woman that could make me dress up as a girl and follow her to sea in a convict ship would have to sink down straight from heaven. This earth couldn’t manufacture her.’ He rounded on his heel and went off.
Some time before ten o’clock the ship’s bell was rung; presently Mr. Balls’s silver pipe sang in shrill whistlings through the ship. Mr. Stiles had ordered me below to ‘clean myself,’ as he called it, and on my return I followed him and Frank on to the poop. The scene was one of extraordinary life and full of brilliant colour. I never can forget that picture of this first Sunday morning I passed on board a convict ship.
When I gained the poop, the ship was crowded with people in motion. The whole of the crew, in such clean Sunday clothes as they could muster, were coming aft. The convicts, in a seemingly endless procession, were passing through the door of the hatch and massing themselves behind the quarter-deck barricade with their faces aft. The guard, saving the sentries on duty, were drawn up in a line on the poop, giving an amazing brightness to the scene with their red coats, shakos, and sparkling arms. Their officers were in full dress, and the doctor in the uniform of a surgeon of the Royal Navy. The commander of the ship stood near the doctor. Behind the soldiers were women and children. Aft, at the extremity of the poop, his figure rising and falling against the dim azure over the stern, stood the solitary figure of the helmsman grasping the wheel, whose brass-work flamed in the sun, and abreast of him paced the second officer, who had charge of the ship. The sailors came tumbling up the lee poop-ladder, and soon all the forward portion of this raised deck was crowded with people.
Such a sight as it was! But I beheld a horror in the beauty of it. Oh, the very spirit of horror itself entered the beauty of that spectacle of shining ship and radiant uniforms and glowing sea out of the mass of human misery and sin down on that main-deck there. I had a clear view of the convicts. I ran my eye over the line of faces whilst I sought for Tom, and my very heart shrank within me at sight of the countenances my gaze briefly settled on. Prejudice, grief and rage may have made me find the villainous looks of numbers more villainous than they were. I viewed them as my sweetheart’s associates, as ruffians and crime-laden scoundrels, into whose vile company my honest, pure-minded sailor, my innocent, injured Tom, had been thrust to toil in irons with them, to lie at night with them, listening to their talk.
The solitary occupant of the forecastle was the sentry. He walked the deck from one rail to the other, sometimes halting to survey the scene. The doctor stood amidships of the break of the poop and began to read in a loud, firm, but slightly nasal voice from the Book of Common Prayer. Every head was bared. The convicts gazed intently up at the reader. There was a pathos in the wondering, staring looks of many of them—a something of childishness that sat strangely on their faces, as if their gross, unlettered ignorance was to be astonished and pleased by the cleverness of a man who read without difficulty, as though he perfectly understood the meaning of what he delivered. Barney Abram was in the front rank of the mass of men. His gaze was fixed on the doctor; his posture was one of humility. I observed that he occasionally nodded as though in appreciation when the doctor paused upon a passage and looked at the convicts. Tom was behind. I saw him with difficulty. The least movement of my head blotted him out by bringing the heads of men in front between us.