It was warm, and there was an oppressive stink of crowded humanity. She stared into the gloom. At first she could see nobody, although she heard the murmur of many voices. She was in a big space filled with what looked like storage racks for barrels. Something moved on the shelf beside her, with a clank like a chain, and she jumped. Then she saw to her horror that what had moved was a human foot in an iron clamp. Someone was lying on the shelf, she saw; no, two people, fettered together at their ankles. As her eyes adjusted she saw another couple lying shoulder to shoulder with the first, then another, and she realized there were dozens of them, packed together on these racks like herrings in a fishmonger’s tray.
Surely, she thought, this was just temporary accommodation, and they would be given proper bunks, at least, for the voyage? Then she realized what a foolish notion that was. Where could such bunks be? This was the main hold, occupying most of the space below deck. There was nowhere else for these wretched people to go. They would spend at least seven weeks lying here in the airless gloom.
“Lizzie Jamisson!” said a voice.
She gave a start. She recognized the Scots accent: it was Mack. She peered into the dark, saying: “Mack—where are you?”
“Here.”
She took a few paces along the narrow walkway between the racks. An arm was stretched out to her, ghostly gray in the twilight. She squeezed Mack’s hard hand. “This is dreadful,” she said. “What can I do?”
“Nothing, now,” he said.
She saw Cora lying beside him and the child, Peg, next to her. At least they were all together. Something in Cora’s expression made Lizzie let go of Mack’s hand. “Perhaps I can make sure you get enough food and water,” she said.
“That would be kind.”
Lizzie could not think of anything else to say. She stood there in silence for a few moments. “I’ll come back down here every day, if I can,” she said at last.
“Thank you.”
She turned and hurried out.
She retraced her steps with an indignant protest on her lips, but when she caught the eye of Silas Bone she saw such a look of scorn on his face that she bit back her words. The convicts were on board and the ship was about to set sail, and nothing she could say would change matters now. A protest would only vindicate Bone’s warning that women should not go below decks.
“The horses are comfortably settled,” Jay said with an air of satisfaction.
Lizzie could not resist a retort. “They’re better off than the human beings!”
“Ah, that reminds me,” said Jay. “Bone, there’s a convict in the hold called Sidney Lennox. Have his irons struck and put him in a cabin, please.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“Why is Lennox with us?” Lizzie said, aghast.
“He was convicted of receiving stolen goods. But the family has made use of him in the past and we can’t abandon him. He might die in the hold.”
“Oh, Jay!” Lizzie cried in dismay. “He’s such a bad man!”
“On the contrary, he’s quite useful.”
Lizzie turned away. She had rejoiced to be leaving Lennox behind in England. What bad luck that he too had been transported. Would Jay never escape from his malign influence?
Bone said: “The tide’s on the turn, Mr. Jamisson. Captain will be impatient to weigh anchor.”
“My compliments to the captain, and tell him to carry on.”
They all climbed the ladder.
A few minutes later Lizzie and Jay stood in the bows as the ship began to move downriver on the tide. A fresh evening breeze buffeted Lizzie’s cheeks. As the dome of St. Paul slipped below the skyline of warehouses she said: “I wonder if we’ll ever see London again.”
III 
Virginia
26
MACK LAY IN THE HOLD OF THE ROSEBUD, shaking with fever. He felt like an animaclass="underline" filthy, nearly naked, chained and helpless. He could hardly stand upright but his mind was clear enough. He vowed he would never again allow anyone to put iron fetters on him. He would fight, try to escape, and hope they killed him rather than suffer this degradation again.
An excited cry from on deck penetrated the hold: “Soundings at thirty-five fathoms, Captain—sand and reeds!”
A cheer went up from the crew. Peg said: “What’s a fathom?”
“Six feet of water,” Mack said with weary relief. “It means we’re approaching land.”
He had often felt he would not make it. Twenty-five of the prisoners had died at sea. They had not starved: it seemed that Lizzie, who had not reappeared below decks, had nevertheless kept her promise and ensured they had enough to eat and drink. But the drinking water had been foul and the diet of salt meat and bread unhealthily monotonous, and all the convicts had been violently ill with the type of sickness that was called sometimes hospital fever and sometimes jail fever. Mad Barney had been the first to die of it: the old went quickest.
Disease was not the only cause of death. Five people had been killed in one dreadful storm, when the prisoners had been tossed around the hold, helplessly injuring themselves and others with their iron chains.
Peg had always been thin but now she looked as if she were made of sticks. Cora had aged. Even in the half dark of the hold Mack could see that her hair was falling out, her face was drawn, and her once voluptuous body was scraggy and disfigured with sores. Mack was just glad they were still alive.
Some time later he heard another sounding: “Eighteen fathoms and white sand.” Next time it was thirteen fathoms and shells; and then, at last, the cry: “Land ho!”
Despite his weakness Mack longed to go on deck. This is America, he thought. I’ve crossed the world to the far side, and I’m still alive; I wish I could see America.
That night the Rosebud anchored in calm waters. The seaman who brought the prisoners’ rations of salt pork and foul water was one of the more friendly crew members. His name was Ezekiel Bell. He was disfigured—he had lost one ear, he was completely bald and he had a huge goiter like a hen’s egg on his neck—and he was ironically known as Beau Bell. He told them they were off Cape Henry, near the town of Hampton in Virginia.
Next day the ship remained at anchor. Mack wondered angrily what was prolonging their voyage. Someone must have gone ashore for supplies, because that night there came from the galley a mouthwatering smell of fresh meat roasting. It tortured the prisoners and gave Mack stomach cramps.
“Mack, what happens when we get to Virginia?” Peg asked.
“We’ll be sold, and have to work for whoever buys us,” he replied.
“Will we be sold together?”
He knew there was little chance of it, but he did not say so. “We might be,” he said. “Let’s hope for the best.”
There was a silence while Peg took that in. When she spoke again her voice was frightened. “Who will buy us?”
“Farmers, planters, housewives … anyone who needs workers and wants them cheap.”
“Someone might want all three of us.”
Who would want a coal miner and two thieves? Mack said: “Or perhaps we might be bought by people who live close together.”
“What work will we do?”
“Anything we’re told to, I suppose: farm work, cleaning, building …”
“We’ll be just like slaves.”
“But only for seven years.”
“Seven years,” she said dismally. “I’ll be grown-up!”
“And I’ll be almost thirty,” Mack said. It seemed middle-aged.