I was nearly of Will’s height, and his clothes fitted me, and when the weather grew very hot I wore his flannel shirts, serge jacket buttoned up to conceal my figure, and white drill trousers. I also got him to buy me a new grass hat from one of the sailors, and thus attired, I looked the smartest, sauciest young fellow that ever stepped the decks of a ship. The captain and the mates knew how I came by the clothes I wore, and asked no questions.
The Woolwich apparel remained in the upper bunk. Long before this I had opened it and inspected the contents, and found every article as I had packed it. It was a very large bundle; it contained my hat and bodice and skirt and the under-linen and shoes I had removed when I dressed myself as a boy.
Meanwhile the doctor was highly satisfied with the progress the convict school-classes were making. He would come to the table and rub his hands and declare, with one of his grave smiles, that since such and such a date So-and-so—and here, perhaps, he would give the initials of a convict or quote several examples by their initials only—had got the Lord’s Prayer by heart and was beginning to pronounce words of two and even three syllables. I am sure he was a benevolent, good, pious man, but repulsive to my sympathies by sternness and officialism and, perhaps, by the thought that Tom was under him, in his power, of no more account than the rest of the prisoners, many of whom were being transported for vile and some for diabolical crimes.
I’d keep my ears open to hear if he spoke of Tom; but he never uttered my sweetheart’s name nor indicated him by any fashion of his own. Strange to relate, one of his favourites was now the prize-fighter Barney Abram. It puzzled me to imagine by what acts this man Abram had succeeded in gaining the doctor’s good opinion and confidence. Certainly during service no man was so attentive as the prize-fighter. I see him now with his head slightly on one side, his eyes fixed upon the doctor with an expression of half-complacent admiration, as though what he heard was not only doing him good but amazing him with the beauty and eloquence with which it was delivered. Then I gathered that Barney was very zealous in the school-work. I remember the doctor telling Captain Barrett that the tears stood in the prize-fighter’s eyes whilst he expressed his gratitude for the opportunities provided by the discipline of the convict ship for improving his understanding and qualifying him to think and reason as a rational, responsible being. Captain Barrett looked silently at the doctor through his eye-glass; but immediately the doctor had quitted the table the captain turned to Lieutenant Chimmo and spoke in a low voice, and then they both laughed wildly. Indeed, the subaltern beat upon the table as though he would suffocate.
I remember again, one afternoon, that I was sent with a tray of seltzer and glasses to the poop. The commander of the ship was seated in company with the doctor and the two military men. An awning was stretched overhead, and its shadow was pleasant with the breath of a small breeze off the beam, and it danced with a strange pulsing of lights from the diamond twinkling of the brilliant blue sea.
We had by this time crossed the Equator; I believe our latitude was about three degrees south. Sentries paced the fore part of the poop as usual; the sentry forward sheltered himself in the gloom of the corner of sail; a few convicts were lounging in a lifeless manner betwixt the barricades. Tom was one of the convicts. He sat at the foot of the mainmast in the shadow of it with his elbows on his knees, his brows betwixt his clenched fists, his head hanging down, his eyes rooted to the deck, his whole posture extraordinary with its suggestion of that sort of grief which turns a man into stone.
Captain Sutherland and the others sat near the foremost skylight that stood but a short distance from the break of the poop. The captain told me to put the tray down on the skylight and fetch a bottle of brandy. I returned with the brandy and a corkscrew, when, just as I was about to draw the cork, the doctor lifted his hand, and with an odd pleased look, bade me stand still and make no noise. Then it was that I heard a sound of singing; the melody was a hymn, but I cannot give it a name; I have since believed it was the air of a well-known hymn sung to words which were written by some convict converted into an honest man by the doctor during a previous voyage.
I judged by the volume of sound that about ten men sang; they sat under the hatch where the gratings made a frame like a bird-cage, otherwise we should not have heard them. They sang well, in good time, and one deep voice was noticeable for its manner of working into the singing in a harmonising way as though the fellow knew music.
Captain Barrett asked a question.
‘Hush, I beg of you,’ said the doctor, with a face of grave satisfaction.