The Grace Stories Read online

  That morning, as the women took their exercise, the sun came out properly for the first time.

  ‘Chains removed today,’ one of the guards called. ‘But there better be no trouble or they’ll be straight back on.’

  ‘There’ll be no trouble, sir,’ Liza reassured him.

  ‘Not with Sally Major gone,’ Hannah whispered to Grace.

  Grace nodded, but even though she knew it was true, she didn’t like to think about Sally, alone in the ship’s coalhole. What if she sunk down into the coal and wasn’t strong enough to pull herself out?

  One by one, the guards unlocked the chains from around the wrists and ankles of the prisoners. Hannah raised her arms high in the air, wiggled her fingers and turned in circles. Grace stretched her arms out behind her back and stood up on her tiptoes. The sun was warm on her face. I hope the sun shines in the new land, she thought. I hope it shines and shines and I am allowed to stand in it every morning.

  On that first day without their chains, one of the marines gave the women a tin whistle. Nance Tucking knew how to play. Three women banged on empty bowls with wooden spoons and the rest sang and danced, taking turns spinning each other around the deck. Even kind old Jenny Tankard took a turn – laughing with her head thrown back, holding her skirt above her knees and kicking her feet high. On the upper deck, the children of the rich lady clapped and shrieked, copying Jenny with steps of their own. The marines on the upper deck tapped their feet and smiled.

  Grace joined in the singing until Hannah grabbed her by the hands and spun her in dizzying circles across the deck. When Grace looked up it seemed as though the turning sky was made of gold.

  The beds were taken back down to the hold just before supper, which was served at four o’clock on the deck.

  After supper, Grace saw some of the women call out to the sailors and guards. When the men answered, they walked over to speak with them. She had noticed that the sailors seemed to choose the woman they liked best and spend any free time they had talking with them. She had even seen some couples kissing in places on the ship where they couldn’t be seen by the captain.

  ‘They might be flogged if the captain catches them,’ Hannah whispered to Grace. ‘That’s what Mama said. She says not to go anywhere near the men.’

  The girls turned away from the couples as if the kissing wasn’t happening at all.

  At sunset they were sent below and the hatch was locked for the night.

  ‘Even though we’re back down here where it’s dark and cold, we must take the sun’s warmth with us like a blanket,’ said Hannah, lying beside Grace.

  ‘A blanket of gold . . .’ whispered Grace, drifting into sleep.

  The next evening, just before the hatch was locked for the night, Grace could see a dark ghost of a figure coming down the ladder. ‘It’s Sally,’ she whispered to Hannah.

  ‘And she’s got no hair,’ Hannah whispered back. ‘Mama said that they might shave her head as punishment.’

  When Sally got to the bottom, she put her hands on her hips, and tipped back her head. ‘Anyone got any pork hidden? I’ve had nothing but dry bread for three bleeding days,’ she croaked.

  ‘Here, Sally,’ said Liza, passing her a cup of water. ‘I hope you learned your lesson, girl.’

  ‘I learned what coal tastes like for dinner is what I learned.’ Sally gulped back the water. ‘Now let me get some rest in my nice soft feather bed.’ Sally climbed into her berth below Hannah and Grace, rolling over so she faced the wall, and was quiet.

  ‘It’s as if nothing can hurt her,’ Hannah said.

  But looking at Sally’s shorn head and her hunched narrow back, Grace suspected that Sally was only pretending she didn’t feel hurt. If I didn’t have a best friend and Liza to watch over me, I would pretend that, too, she thought.

  In the early hours of the morning, Grace woke needing to use the privy. She climbed down as quietly as she could to find the bucket. On her way back to bed she heard crying coming from Sally Major’s berth. It was very soft and reminded Grace of the way she used to cry when she didn’t want her uncle to hear her. She remembered how she had wished for someone who could help her.

  Grace leaned in close to Sally, her heart pounding – she hadn’t spoken to the older girl before. ‘Sally, are you all right?’ she whispered.

  Without warning, Sally turned and grabbed Grace’s arm, yanking her into the berth, her fingers digging into Grace’s skin. Grace could smell Sally’s breath, sour with hunger. In the dim light, she saw the whites of her eyes against the black of her coal-covered face.

  ‘Want to see my most precious things in the world?’ Sally’s harsh tear-filled whisper made Grace feel scared. Sally opened her hands and brought them close to Grace’s eyes. Grace saw that she was wearing a pair of ragged white lace gloves so worn that some of the fingers were missing.

  ‘My father gave me these just before he died,’ Sally said. ‘He told me: “You’re a lady, my Sally, a real lady, my precious girl. I love you. You must never forget it.” They were the last words he ever said. But, Grace, I do forget sometimes, I do. These are all I have left to remind me – I’ve kept them through everything.’ Sally turned her hands slowly in the air. ‘A lady . . . a real lady . . .’

  ‘They are very beautiful,’ Grace whispered, watching Sally’s hands move like small shadows above their heads.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ Sally whispered.

  Grace nodded. I know about secrets, she thought. Until I met Hannah, horses were my secret. I’d have had nothing without them.

  Sally pulled the gloves from her fingers, rolled them into a ball and stuffed them deep into the bodice of her dress. ‘Hadn’t you best be getting back to your bed before your friends see you’re gone?’ And with that she rolled over, away from Grace, as if she had never shared her secret and didn’t want Grace there.

  Grace left Sally alone and climbed up to her berth. Sally showed me her gloves so there would be another person who knows how much they matter, Grace thought. She remembered how it had felt to tell Hannah about her horses. How sharing her secret made it feel important and real. Grace decided then that it didn’t matter how badly Sally behaved, she would keep the secret of the lace gloves safe – even from Hannah.

  One morning, a week later, Grace and Hannah volunteered to clean the deck with three of the other prisoners. The hard work warmed Grace’s body, although it made her hands calloused and sore. As the women rubbed the soft sandstone over the boards, they began to talk about New South Wales. Anne May was one of the few prisoners on the ship who could read and write. She knew lots of things about the life that lay ahead in the colonies because her sister’s husband had been transported for forgery.

  ‘My sister got a letter from her husband a few months back,’ said Anne May to Nance Tucking. ‘He said that he has served his full term and the governor has given him land to farm. He’s richer than he ever could have been in England. Only he isn’t a farmer by trade. He had to work out which end the milk comes from on a cow!’

  The women laughed.

  ‘So all you have to do is serve your seven years and you can own land?’ Nance said.

  ‘Yes, and a lot of it,’ Anne May answered. ‘But it’s dry there and some things don’t grow. And he said there are Indians who try and steal your crops, and huge rats that bounce on their back legs and if you come across one in a field you better run because these giant rats like to box.’

  Nance wiped the sweat from her face. ‘Giant rats? Gawd, they sound terrible.’

  ‘They are terrible. And they taste awful to eat, but there’s nothing else. You have to burn them to a cinder to kill the taste.’

  ‘Uch!’

  ‘Who are the Indians?’ Grace asked.

  ‘They’re the people who were already there. They carry spears, and they have black skin and some of them are friendly enough. But my brother-in-law is scared of them.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s scared of everything,’ said Jenny Tankard. ‘But we
don’t need to be, do we ladies? We survived the streets of fine London, we’ll survive anything!’

  The women were quiet for a few moments – the only sound was the stone slush-slushing across the boards.

  After a while Nance asked, ‘How do you get a husband in the new land? Did your brother-in-law mention anything about that?’

  ‘You get a husband by starting out as a servant for a free settler – if you’re a good servant for him you’ll make a good wife. My brother-in-law said that there aren’t enough women in the colony and we’ll get snapped up real quick.’

  Grace didn’t know whether to believe Anne May. Are there really dangerous Indians who carry spears? she wondered. And giant rats? Will somebody choose me as a servant? I’m too young to be a wife.

  Hannah seemed to read Grace’s mind. ‘Don’t worry, Grace,’ she whispered. ‘We won’t be wives – you’ll work with horses. You will teach them to jump fences and perform rescues, and I will set up a circus to entertain the settlers. I’ll put the giant rats in my circus and train them to leap through hoops. You wait and see!’

  Grace giggled; she could just imagine Hannah in a sequinned skirt training giant rats. And then she realised that what Hannah said could be half true – if there were cows in the new land, there might be horses as well. Grace put her face up to the early morning sun so that it warmed her cheeks. She breathed in deeply. Even the possibility of horses made Grace feel happy.

  That night, as Liza handed out the rations for dinner, Hannah noticed that Jenny Tankard was missing from the opposite berth. ‘Mama,’ she said when Liza returned, ‘where’s Jenny?’

  Liza passed a bowl of rice and beef to her daughter. ‘Jenny is in the hospital – she has a fever. It came on very sudden. I will need to go and check on her. I may not be back till late so you two stay out of trouble.’

  Hannah and Grace watched as Liza made her way to the other side of the prison area. The hospital was separated from their section by a large bulkhead. A guard let her through a small door that was otherwise always locked.

  ‘The surgeon chose Mama to help,’ said Hannah, proudly. ‘Did you know that she can even deliver a baby? My grandma was a midwife. She delivered half the babies in London. She showed Mama how it’s done.’

  ‘Liza delivers babies too?’ Grace was impressed. She wondered what it might be like to have a mother and be proud of the good things she could do. Though she would never say anything to Hannah, sometimes she envied her friend.

  The next morning, Grace was woken by Liza stumbling into her berth.

  ‘Mama, have you been gone all night?’ Hannah asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  ‘I’ve been in the hospital with Jenny,’ Liza told the girls. ‘She is terribly sick. She can’t keep anything down and is passing blood.’

  ‘Mama!’

  ‘I’m sorry, girls. I don’t mean to scare you. I hardly know what I’m saying I’m so weary . . . At least she is getting fresh, clean water with lemon juice and sugar. I can better keep her cool there, and her bedding dry and clean. The hospital is scraped and swept every morning and they keep the scuttles open whenever they can so the air is cleaner. But I fear for Jenny,’ Liza said, shaking her head. ‘She is very old . . .’

  Hannah threw her arms around her mother. ‘Oh, Mama, I wish Jenny would get better and you could take some rest.’

  Grace wanted to embrace Liza the way Hannah did, and tell her that she cared. But I’m too shy, she thought. Would Liza ever know how Grace felt about her?

  Over the next few days Liza was often away caring for Jenny. Each time she returned, Hannah or Grace would ask, ‘How is Jenny now? Is she better?’ And each time Liza’s answer was the same. ‘Not yet better, girls, not yet better.’ Everybody missed Jenny’s kindness and laughter. Though she was the oldest prisoner on the ship, she was one of the liveliest.

  AFTER they had been at sea for over a month, the waves started to get rough and the weather worsened. Many of the convicts were seasick again, including Hannah. There weren’t enough privy buckets for everybody and they had no choice but to vomit into the bilge water that washed up and down the bottom of the ship. Grace was grateful that at least her berth was on the upper level beside Hannah, out of the way of the stinking water, tainted with sick.

  The air scuttles were kept closed through the stormy weather and the air in the hold hung heavy and lifeless. The water was seeping through the ship’s seams. Nothing could be kept dry. The bedding could not be dried in the sun and the wind on deck each morning, and at night the women slept in damp and mouldy beds. Grace found it impossible to get warm.

  The guards stopped opening the hatches and the women spent their days in darkness. There were very few provisions brought down to the prisoners and they were hungry and cranky with each other. They accused each other of stealing and tried to pick fights.

  Sally Major was growing more and more difficult every day, often screaming at the other prisoners, and hammering hour after hour at the locked hatch. One morning she began to pick on Hannah, stepping in front of her and leaning in close.

  ‘Think you’re so special, don’t you, Miss Hannah. With your fancy ideas about what’s going to happen to us. Don’t you know we’re headed for the rubbish heap? They don’t have circuses and sideshows on a bleeding rubbish heap.’ Sally pushed Hannah’s shoulder and Grace felt her stomach tighten. Liza was on the other side of the boat and couldn’t see what Sally was doing.

  ‘Hannah will make a sideshow out of mangy cats and fish bones if she has to.’ Grace tried to make a joke so that Sally would leave her friend alone.

  But Sally wouldn’t stop. ‘Think you’re that bit better than everybody else, don’t you missy, just because your mother makes sure you get double the rations than what the rest of us get. When I was your age I could fend for myself. I didn’t need no bleeding mother. But not you, not precious Miss Hannah!’ Sally shoved Hannah in the middle of her chest.

  ‘You leave me alone, Sally! I get the same rations as everybody else!’

  Grace could tell by the shaking in Hannah’s voice that she was scared.

  ‘You get double, you spoilt little beggar!’

  ‘Leave her alone, Sally.’ Grace stepped in front of Hannah. ‘Everybody is hungry.’

  ‘And if it ain’t her mother it’s you watching over her like she’s made of glass. Blast the lot of you!’ Sally lunged at Hannah, only just missing her face with her fist.

  At that moment Nance Tucking came out of the darkness. ‘That’s it, Sally, I been looking for someone to hit and it looks like you’re asking for it, picking on the young ones!’

  She swiped at Sally with her open hand, smacking her on the mouth. Sally fought back, punching Nance Tucking hard on the nose. They fell to the floor, throwing punches, grabbing hair and scratching at each other.

  Grace pulled Hannah out of the way. ‘Come on, Hannah! Nance is strong enough to take care of herself.’

  ‘Sally Major is the most horrible girl on the ship!’ Hannah said, when she was clear of the women.

  ‘I know,’ said Grace, but even as she said it she couldn’t help remembering Sally’s ragged gloves. At the very same time as feeling angry with Sally for picking on her best friend, she felt sad.

  After a week of this weather, everyone grew very quiet, just trying to survive each long, tedious day. Grace noticed that some of the women seemed to be getting sicker – unable to even sit up in their berths. They lay hour after hour on their sides, gripping their stomachs and groaning.

  Even Sally was too ill to make trouble. She could only lie in her berth, holding her belly in pain. ‘At least now she’ll leave everybody alone,’ said Hannah.

  One night when Hannah was sleeping, Grace took half of her own water ration and crept down to Sally’s berth.

  ‘Here, Sally.’ Grace held out her cup. Sally could barely hold her head up to drink the water and Grace had to help her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, before gripping her
stomach again.

  Although Grace hated seeing Sally pick on her best friend, she knew it was because the older girl had nobody – only her secret to give her comfort, and Grace wasn’t sure that was enough.

  The next day, Sally was transferred to the hospital section, and then more of the women were moved there, until there was no room for anyone else. Some had such bad diarrhoea they had to have a privy bucket with them at all times. Because there were not enough buckets to go around, the bilge water filled with the stinking overflow. Liza said they had a disease called dysentery. Mr Evans, the surgeon, had told her that the sickness was spreading through the water, but Liza didn’t believe him. ‘It’s blooming obvious we’re giving it to each other,’ she said, angry and tired. ‘The sick need to be kept away from the healthy as soon as they show the signs.’

  One evening, Liza returned from the hospital even more red-eyed and exhausted than usual.

  ‘What is it, Mama? You’ve been crying!’ Hannah clutched her mother’s hand.

  ‘Oh, girls,’ said Liza. ‘Poor Jenny Tankard is dead. She died in the night. Two weeks ago she was dancing on the deck, and now she is gone.’ She drew the girls into her arms and Grace felt grateful for her warmth.

  ‘Is Jenny the only one?’ Grace asked, her anxious words muffled in Liza’s hair.

  Grace could smell Liza’s sweat and feel the heat coming from her exhausted body.

  ‘For now she is the only one,’ Liza said, holding the girls close. ‘Promise me you won’t get sick. I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘Yes, Mama, I promise.’ Hannah kissed her mother’s damp cheek. And though she couldn’t say anything, Grace felt the sting of tears in her eyes.

  Each morning, Liza would fall into her berth, pale with exhaustion. Grace and Hannah would rub her hands and feet, and bring her cups of water, asking her for news, but Liza, after a few brief words, always fell fast asleep.

  Then came the day she returned, and when Hannah asked her if she was all right, she did not answer at all.