The Convict Ship, Volume 3 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

When we saw that the ocean was bare, we gazed with curiosity at the little ship we were aboard of. Tom told Bates that he reckoned her about two hundred tons. I have her before me as though I stood on her deck at this moment. She was brig-rigged. Her lower masts were painted white. Her bulwarks were tall and pierced for six guns, three of a side. She carried, however, but two small carronades, one on either hand amidships, and a small pivoted brass piece on her forecastle. The inside of her bulwarks was painted green; the planks of the deck were white; and she looked a very staunch, strong, clean little ship. A tiny caboose stood just abaft the forecastle. Her long-boat was gone, and she was without a boat. The after-part of her deck was filled with a long house, with a narrow gangway on either side to enable you to pass aft. This house sparkled with little windows; it was painted white and green, and a short flight of steps conducted you to the roof, that was somewhat elegantly protected by a brass rail. Everything that met the eye was fine and smart. The harness cask, for instance, was handsome and hooped with brass; the binnacle was as pretty a quarter-deck ornament as ever I saw; the rigging was good, the sails fairly new, and all things in their place. The keen eyes of Tom and Mr. Bates found nothing amiss anywhere. Yet she had a somewhat mildewed look, as of a craft that had been for some time drifting about without men, and in a short hencoop on the main-deck lay eight or nine dead cocks and hens.

Tom overhung her side, and said that she was black, with a gilt line running her length. He sounded the well when the light came, and found the water exactly at the height at which it had stood when they had left off pumping.

‘Bates,’ said he, ‘we’ll get that quarter-boat aboard presently. First let’s overhaul the vessel and see what sort of yarn about herself she can spin us. Will, hold the wheel. My lad, you look half dead; you used not to look so when we went our walks with Marian. You shall take rest soon—but there’s something to be done first.’

He picked up my bundle of clothes off the deck, and I and Mr. Bates followed him into the deck-house.

Here all was as bright and clean as though the brig were fresh from the hands of the artificers. The sunshine streamed through a central skylight. I counted six cabin-doors, three of a side. The furniture consisted of an oblong table, chairs, a couple of lamps, a tell-tale compass, and other such matters. The first thing that took our sight was a large square of paper nailed to the table. It was the back of a white chart, and upon it was a quantity of writing in a large, sprawling hand. Tom twisted it round without pulling it from the nail, and the mate and I stood beside him and gazed at the giant missive. Close to where the paper was perforated was the drawing of a coffin; upon the coffin lid in relief was sketched the figure of a man. The face of the man was undoubtedly a portrait. It was a rude performance, but good. To the left was a skull, well done; to the right, cross-bones. Under ‘To all concerned,’ Tom read aloud:

‘This brig is the Old Stormy, of Liverpool, bound to Cape Town with a small general cargo. John Wilson, master (his portrait’s on the coffin); William Nash, mate, now mince-mate, and thanks be to God for the smallest kindness shown to sailors.

‘We sailed out of the Mersey. Our ship’s company was five seamen and a cook. The provisions were middling good till we got out to sea, then the little that was sweet had been scoffed, and what came next was rot and stench—rot in the bread-bag where the worms were and stench in the harness cask where the meat was.

‘We had been promised a daily allowance of rum. Clear of Soundings the rum gave out. The captain said there had been a mistake in the shipping of the stuff, and we got no more.

‘But what was this to his and the mate’s usage of us? To you, if it concerns you, the bleeding mongrel, half-stripped by the mange, gone mad and chased with pitchfork and brickbat, was tenderly served, compared with us forecastle hands.

‘Yet we kept all on turning to, and we endured till patience dropped dead and Cain stepped aboard. It happened just to the nor’ard of the Equator, and when it was over there were six pale men left, but never a thumb-nail width of mess. No, and there’d been no noise. No, and swift was the job. Next thing to be done was to get away out of it. Vom-us! was the word. Not a man could measure the sun’s height, so we’ve agreed to go. And our reasons are twenty. You, if you’re concerned, find them out. So here I sit, on a Friday night, writing this down as a warning with a moral in its tail: Take heed, all you ruffian skippers and mates, how you ill-treat good men.