The Convict Ship, Volume 2 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

And, indeed, until the convicts were all in their quarters below, nothing was to have been done, for the seamen must have gone amongst them to haul and drag upon certain of the gear. At the foot of the mainmast, for example, were belayed many ropes, all belonging to the vast spread of sail stretching on high overhead, and this mast stood within the barricades. What might have happened had the sailors rushed in amongst the convicts to bring the ship to the wind?

Captain Sutherland stood pale and still at the head of the poop-ladder; the ship’s company were streaming forward through the gangway galley, and when I quitted the poop in the tail of the procession of women and children, the captain, the officers, and the line of soldiers, who stood in a posture to instantly cover the convicts, alone remained on that deck.

I stood in the recess along with Frank and some of the soldiers’ wives, waiting to see what was going to happen within the barricades. One of the convicts had been killed or stunned by the maniac, and lay as motionless as a log. The sentinel who had shot the man trudged the forecastle with frequent looks in the direction of the main-deck, as though prepared at any instant for a call to level his piece afresh. The women near me jabbered incessantly, and every tongue wagged in defence of Murphy, as they called the soldier.

‘God pity me!’ exclaimed Frank, looking at the woman. ‘But it vhas murder to shoot a madman.’

‘Mind your own business!’ cried one of the women, angrily. ‘It’s the duty of a soldier to obey orders, and the orders of a sentry are to shoot down any convict who gets over the barricade and attempts to leave the ship. So there!’ she cried spitefully. I believe she was Murphy’s wife. ‘How was the sentry to know he was mad? If a soldier don’t obey orders he stands to be shot himself. So there.’

‘It vhas murder,’ said Frank, and, smiting his thigh, he cried, ‘she makes my blood boil.’

‘If you calls it murder again,’ said another of the women, ‘I’ll speak to the sergeant, and he shall talk to you. You’re a low German fellow, and us soldiers’ wives are not to be insulted by the likes of you.’

‘So there!’ cried the woman who had just spoken, spitting the words at the young fellow.

Meanwhile sharp orders were being delivered within the barricade. I took my chance of being reprimanded from the poop and went a little way along the alley, and saw all the convicts still massed, but in motion; they were descending the hatch, but one at a time, for there was room for no more. The body of the fellow who had been stunned was held by four of the prisoners. The doctor stood alone and apart within the inclosure, looking at the men as they swarmed slowly toward the main-hatch, filtering to their quarters. He was white, but stern and collected. Sometimes he spoke, pointing or moving his hand as though to insist on more order. He seemed a fearless figure, and though I disliked him, I could not but admire him. There were scores, perhaps, amongst those felons who would have made no more of felling him and kicking out his brains than of dashing an egg to the deck.

I did not see Tom, so I went back to the recess, and just then an apprentice struck six bells. Ten minutes later, every convict was below and the main-deck clear; but I observed that when the guard came off the poop one of the soldiers passed through the quarter-deck gate to double the sentry at the main-hatch, and I heard another tell one of the women, as he went below to the barracks, that he was to do duty as second sentry at the prison door of the steerage bulkhead.