'Ha! What about leap years, then? Your habacus didn't count no leap years, now did it?' He pointed a sharp finger at Mary and jumped from one foot to the other. 'Ho, ho, habacus ain't such a clever Dick now is it?'
The female convicts all looked questioningly at Mary.
'What you takes me for, an idjit?' Mary sniffed. 'There be eleven in all, they's all counted, leap years and even this mornin's included in.'
The women in the cart clapped and yelled their approval and there was much rattling of chains and laughter at Mary's sharp rejoinder.
'Well, well, we'll soon see about this mornin' included in, won't we?' Potbottom said, his lips drawn to a tight line. 'Welcome aboard His Majesty's convict ship, Destiny II. Destiny be a good name,' he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the boat, 'for her gracious ladyship. You see, if you be o' the kind what trusts to destiny to supply yer needs, I is most pleased to inform you that you has got it exactly right! On board we supplies all the misery yer heart could desire, lashin's and lashin's o' the stuff, and, as well, we tops it up with despair, more of it than what you could possibly digest in one plain sailin'!'
Mary laughed nervously and the others followed, a titter ran through the cart.
'Oh, now we laughs, does we?' Potbottom's eyes narrowed. 'I knows not how many days you has been alive on Gawd's sweet earth, Mary Habacus, but I makes you this most solemn promise.' Potbottom's eyes held Mary's. 'The worse ones hasn't yet come for you!' He paused and gave her a malevolent smile. 'But they will. Oh deary me, yes! They will, they will!'
Tiberias Potbottom turned his back on them and hurried up the gangway, his short bandy legs making his shoulders jump from side to side, his long arms hanging loose, so that he lurched along very much like the monkey creature he so closely resembled. It was only then that they noticed that one shoulder was higher than the other, that there was a hump, though not overly large, resting behind it. Tiberias Potbottom was a hunchback.
'Blimey! Who'll be touchin' that one's hump for luck,' Mary exclaimed softly.
The women in the cart giggled and watched as Potbottom disappeared on to the deck above them. 'Jesus!' Ann Gower said in a loud whisper. 'Talk about 'ot an' cold! What were that all about?'
'Whatever it were, it ain't good news for me,' Mary sighed. She turned to one of the two turnkeys who'd escorted them on the trip down and who had just that moment returned from reporting to the ship's surgeon-superintendent, the already infamous Joshua Smiles. Neither of their guards had witnessed the exchange between the convict women and Potbottom, who'd brushed past them just as they'd reached the top of the gangway.
'Can you take off our irons now, Mr Burke, we be exceeding tired o' standin'?' Mary asked politely.
'Not till you 'as been counted and numbers taken,' Burke said. 'Sorry, that be regulations.'
A murmur of dissatisfaction came from the cart which caused the second of their guards to raise both hands and pat the air in front of him. 'Now, now, girls, you been good so far, don't you go spoilin' things now!' He smiled up at the women in the cart, 'Besides, Mr Potbottom, what be assistant to ship's surgeon, be 'ere soon enough to count and take your numbers.'
An hour later with the spring sunshine turned unseasonably hot and uncomfortable they still remained standing in the cart. The female convicts had no protection but for their mob caps, their ankles were swollen and painful from standing and their throats were parched for want of water. Many of the older women were close to swooning in the heat. They commenced to shouting, demanding and begging from all who mounted the gangway to release them from their chains and allow them to step down from the cart and into the shade cast by the ship's side. When they were ignored by the coming and going throng they cussed loudly, calling out obscenities. Finally two jack tars appeared at the top of the gangway, the one carrying a small table and the other a chair. They walked down and placed them in the shade on the dock.
'Call the bleedin' baboon what's meant to count us!' Mary shouted angrily at the two tars, her temper quite lost. 'There's some near dyin' for want of a drop o' bloody water!'
'Baboon, is I? Well thank you very much!' Potbottom said, appearing at the top of the gangway. 'A baboon what can count and take numbers, an extraordinary baboon what is blessed with a very long memory for the slightest slight and insults what injure!'
'Oh shit!' Mary said in a loud whisper.
Tiberias Potbottom, a small smile on his face, walked down the gangway and skipped lightly on to the dock-side where he continued on to the table and chair.
'Shit it be, but not for me! Shit it be for such as thee!' He smirked.
He was carrying a large ledger under his arm which seemed to raise his hunched shoulder even higher and now he took it and opened it on the table to show one of its two opened pages half filled with writing. From the side pocket of his worn frock coat he produced a pot of blacking and, undoing its cap carefully, placed it beside the ledger. Then he took a goose feather quill from an inside pocket and this too he laid beside the book. Having completed this task he stepped to the front of the table and placed his hands behind his back, whereupon he commenced to rock on the back of his heels looking up at the women in the cart.
'Has we had enough, then? Enough profanity to last us all the ways to Hobart Town?' He did not wait for their response, but continued. 'Or does we stay another hour and get the rest o' the bile out of our vile hearts?' He paused and this time waited. 'Well?' he finally asked.
'Enough, sir,' Mary said, her eyes suitably downcast and her hands clasped in humility in front of her. The others nodded eagerly. 'We's 'ad enough o' cussin', sir,' Mary repeated. 'Can we step down now, if you please, sir, Mr Potbottom?'
Potbottom squinted up at Mary and, shaking his head slowly, said, 'Oh, I very much hopes so, Mary Habacus, I very much hopes so! You see, Mr Smiles don't take kindly to profanity and me,' he shrugged, 'I is his sharp eyes and his large ears and I must warn you!' He paused and chuckled. 'Me eyes is exceedin' good and… ' he touched one of his ears lightly, '… me ears is even much better'n that!'
From his back pocket he produced a large red silk handkerchief and held it open in front of him, the silk hanging limp from one corner. 'Sailing is Gawd's breath,' he began, as though he were about to give a lecture, which indeed was his intention. 'When the sails lay limp that means Gawd has taken away his breath and we is becalmed.' He glanced at them as though to assure himself of their attention. 'Becalmed, that be an awesome thing. To be upon the ocean without Gawd's breath, to be forsaken by the Almighty.' Potbottom's small body seemed to shudder at the very prospect. 'That be a time for the devil to skip across the flat sea and come aboard.' He waited for the effect of his words to sink in and then, with his free hand, he took up a second corner of the scarf so that it hung square in front of his face, whereupon he blew upon it so that the silk billowed away from him. 'Gawd's gentle and steady breath be everythin' to them what sails upon the oceans wide. It be His gift to us for observin' His ways, ways you lot has long since forsaken!' Potbottom suddenly flapped the scarf furiously and his voice rose in pitch. 'You makes Gawd angry! Terrible angry! And when He be angry, His breath be angry! His angry breath be a storm at sea, a hurricane what takes small ships and drives 'em up high onto the furious waves and dashes them down, and breaks their backs and smashes 'em to tinder, and sends 'em to the bottom o' the ocean!' His voice lowered. 'Planks and carcases and barrels and bilge, spat up later on some distant and forsaken shore!'