One Night in Sydney Cove

Jane stirs and gives our original chaperone one look and for a moment I think she might screech at him, for there is anger on her face. The man, whose face is battered and bruised, looks back at us and his bloody mouth breaks into a fearsome grin of blood and rotten teeth. I'm shocked how casual he sounds when he tells us, "This is not going to end well for your friends, my luverlies."

I force my eyes away from his nasty wicked grin, but there is only nightmare surrounding us as I look up at the leering and cheering men's faces crowding in close. Bets are being taken, where the forged and foreign coins we call currency are passed to the bookmakers, and somewhere above I hear Charlotte screech her vile tongue, berating the rest of the convicts to join the fray. "Come on youse useless syphilised cock suckers and help your mate John, ya soft pansy cunts."

For an absurd moment my heart is warmed by Charlotte's dreadful tirade. At the Cape of Good Hope she and several of the other women were transferred from the transport ship Friendship to our ship, her name sake the Charlotte, because they were causing trouble among the sailors and Marines, and fighting heavily among themselves. Yet, despite their uncouth ways, they were bonded like sisters and never backed down from a fight, either among one another or to defend one another.

A female voice calls out from the convicts, "You take them sailors all on ya self, Char, and they won't know what fucking hit 'em. Then you give 'em all a good rutting to compensate their wounds."

"She's a hell cat, our Charlotte is," a male voice, who I recognise as James Squire's, brings laughter from several of the bystanders. "She'd beat the sailors single handed, for sure. I'll put money on that!"

"Put yer currency where yer mouth is, James, and show us yer coins!" one of the bookmakers calls to him. If I had any currency to make a bet, I'd seriously consider backing Charlotte too, for she stands a head taller than many of the men and is likely stronger too, and I have no doubt she can hold her own. I've seen her in action more than once.

The moment of gladdening in my heart dies as the reality of our situation sets in. This is like a nightmare, I think, as hopelessness washes over me, because more sailors are joining the fray, and very few convicts have joined the fighting against them. It matters not who wins, because we are the prize for either side. The noise of fists smashing into faces and of yelling men is truly awful. The distant thunder rumbles again in the blackening sky, closer now, and the heat as oppressive as ever.

"What's going on here!" a Scottish accent calls out in a fiercely authoritarian tone. "Break it up, you filthy rabble or I'll have you all flogged!"

None of the combatants take notice of the Marine officer at first, as if he wasn't even there, and at least one spectating convict laughed, "Go away, Clark, ya prissy little maggot," and the fighting continues.

Again the officer barks. "Sergeant Campion! Break this rabble up and take those men into custody and find the insolent man who defied me!"

"Sir!" A gruff response, and though I can't see them from my position on the ground, I assume the Marines are coming forward, brandishing their 'Brown Bess' muskets. The crowd subdues since the fighting convicts realise this is no longer a battle they can win, and several Marine's in their red coats come into view, pushing into the crowd. I search their faces, wondering if I recognise any from the Charlotte, and I'm not sure if I was glad or sad none of them are. Either way, this situation is getting ugly.

The young officer steps forward among the thinning crowd, his face sneering at the sailors. "Fighting with convicts over these filthy whore bitches. You ought to be flogged." Then he turns to John, Mary's man, who has blood pouring from his nose. "And you, John Baughan, certainly will be flogged. Sergeant Butler, take this man into custody! And you lot, go back to your tents unless you want to join your rotten comrade on the triangles tomorrow."

The thunder is no longer a distant rumble as the darkening sky is lit with regular flashes followed by loud claps from behind the great rocks towering over the camp. If the convict men believe their compatriot John is being treated unfairly, they don't show it, because most are retreating to their fires and tents under the trees. For them life has rarely or never been fair, and while John fought the sailors bravely to protect Mary, very few appear to show further loyalty to him. After all, he is a convicted felon like the rest of us, and can take his own chances. It's likely the convicts know they can wait their turn to use us women too, so needn't take up someone else's battle. I shudder at the thought, at my own fate and also now to how my friend Mary Cleaver will fare, with her infant son who's still wailing, adding to the mayhem.

"Stand up, Jane," I again whisper through clenched teeth, attempting to haul her to her feet with the help of Ann Beardsley. Reluctantly and with a sigh Jane complies, and I can't help the feeling of contempt at her weakness, followed by a sense of guilt for feeling this way. I'd like to think I'm a kind person and feel we should help the weak, but all of us are trying to put on our bravest faces here and I can't help it that my heart of hearts tells me Jane's feebleness is letting us down.

Mary, who's ever so brave, joins us, glaring at all comers with her baby in one arm and fist of the other balled in rage, while Elizabeth Bason, who was also in the long boat with us, stands silently beside me.

"Ralph Clark," I hear Charlotte's seething whisper, and I turn my head to see her glaring at the young Marine Lieutenant, and she spits on the ground. "Bastard was on the Friendship so I know the man's a turd if I ever saw one. Hates us women more than he hates the men." She spat again.

Lieutenant Clark catches Charlotte's eyes and for a moment returns her stare. It's almost like he's about to berate her, though perhaps he doesn't dare, but it matters not because all of a sudden there is a great flash followed immediately by another crack of thunder from behind the rocky ridge and the Lieutenant flinches in fright, as do many of the Marines and almost all us women too. Except Charlotte who stands fast, tall and defiant, spitting on the ground a third time. I don't quite know why but in that moment I admire her dearly.

Turning to his men, the Lieutenant covers his fear of the approaching storm by barking an order that's borderline hysterical. "Sergeant, clasp that man in irons. Arrest all the women too. They caused this and..." Before the Lieutenant finishes his sentence or the Sergeant can act, another flash and crack of thunder jolts everyone, some of us jumping, and others ducking their heads, as if they can avoid the lightning strike, the thunder echoing off the rocky ridge above us, rumbling deeply for many, many seconds.

"Lieutenant, belay the order," another Marine calls out. It's a voice I recognise and long to hear; that of Captain Watkin Tench, and my heart beats a little quicker and I'm sure my face has reddened too! He walks confidently up to the young Lieutenant, followed by four other Marines, passing by the last of the crowd of convicts and sailors who were not held by Clark's Marines. Tench turns to them. "Nothing to see here, lads. Move along." Then he turns his attention back to the Lieutenant. "The Major requests a detail of soldiers to meet him at the store-houses, so kindly take your detachment to meet him there before this storm hits us and he'll give you further orders."

Lieutenant Clark looks aghast for a moment, and another flash of lighting and crack of thunder lights up the darkness of the low black clouds closing over the still waters of the harbour. Captain Tench appears to be waiting patiently with an impassive face, giving Clark a moment to gather his wits and carry out his new orders. My heart skips a beat or two, for you must know by now I'm rather fond of Captain Tench, who has treated me kindly on the journey out.

"Sir, what about these convicts and sailors?" Clark asks, pointing at John, who glares back with blood still dripping from his nose and upper lip. "They have been brawling."

"I'll deal with them, Lieutenant."

Clark looks uncertain and gestures towards John, who is yet to be clamped into irons. "We should at least arrest this man for attacking the sailors."

"Lieutenant Clark, the Major requests your presence, if you please."

Clark still looks uncertain, but he's a Second Lieutenant and the Captain has given an order. He hesitates a moment longer, then snaps a salute and says, "Yes, Sir. As you please," and then barks an order to his men, telling them to march in the direction of the Governor's settlement at the head of the cove. There is another flash and thunder crack, causing several of the Marines to flinch, including Captain Tench.

"Mary," John reaches for her and she falls into his big arms, almost crushing baby James between them. The sailor with the tattoos who'd originally chaperoned us from the boat spits a gob-full of blood in their direction.

"Mr Baughan," Captain Tench calls out to John. "Did you brawl with this sailor?"

John hesitates for a moment, giving the sailor a shifty look, then speaks. "I fell down, Sir. Tripped on a tree root. Hurt me face."

I look from John to Captain Tench, noting the officer's impassive demeanour as he addresses the sailor. "Is this so?"

The sailor, his mouth still bloody, looks at the Marine Captain and nods. "Aye, Sir. He tripped and fell on his face."

"Ah, I see," Tench replies, also nodding back at the sailor, as if the explanation made sense. Gesturing at the sailor's bloody mouth, Captain Tench continued, "And did you trip too?"

"Yes, Sir. I also tripped."

Puzzled, I look to Tench and then his Marines who stand to attention behind the Captain, and to a man the enlisted men appear to be smirking, trying ever-so-hard to stifle a grin. I'm not quite sure what is happening.

However, the Captain's not amused. "Listen to me," he speaks in a low voice, mostly addressing the sailors and managing to sound threatening despite his natural air of congeniality. "The Commodore wants no trouble tonight. I've been invited back on board the Charlotte by Master Glibert, and so if you and your lads would be so kind as to row me to her, I would be most obliged. If you don't mind, I believe I saw no trouble here, only some light-hearted banter and games. Master Gilbert informs me there will be a double rum ration on board tonight, so you lads will be celebrating the disembarkation of the women from your ships, for which you must be glad."

"You lads can celebrate with each other," Charlotte's face breaks into a grin, making lewd thrusts with her pelvis.

"Miss Ware, that'll be enough!" Captain Tench's voice is loud now and replete with authority, and a chastened Charlotte shuts her big mouth for once. Then Tench calls to the men behind him. "Corporal."

"Sir?" A broad-shouldered Marine replies, his smirk gone as another crack of thunder burst from the sky, its long rumble echoing off the low valleys surrounding the immense harbour like an angry beast.

"It appears we are in for another deluge this evening. Please take Private's Hayes, Mitchell, and McCarthy and set up your picket at the guard tent. You know the drill. I've arranged for another detachment to relieve you around twelve o'clock, so you can get some sleep after then." Tench looks at each of us women for a moment, making eye-contact with me and also my companion Ann Beardsley while he speaks. "Take these women with you and make sure they are safe and dry tonight. They won't have time to set up in their own quarters so see they are comfortable in the guard tents."

"Yes, Sir," the Marine Corporal answers his superior officer. "Come with me, ladies, if you please."

"Oh, and Corporal."

"Sir?"

"I know you men are light on rations, but please see the ladies get something to eat. They must be famished."

"Yes, Sir. These ladies will feast like queens tonight, Sir." The big Marine Corporal is grinning.

"There's a good lad, Bowers" Tench tells the man with a smile. "I'm sure they will."

I look to the Captain as I begin to follow the Corporal, my gut still churns and I wonder if we've stepped out of the pan and into the fire, but I swear the Captain winked at me. I can't be sure, but I reckon he did. He certainly gave me a smile.

The sailor with the bloody mouth watches us go with a shrug of his shoulders and I sense the night's outcome could have been a lot worse. Oh, what a relief! Had Captain Tench not arrived with these Marines...oh, I dare not think about it! They can be such beasts, those sailors, more so than many of the convicts.

"God almighty, what a shame," says Elizabeth, "I do like me those burly sailors! I guess I'll have me a 'andsome Marine instead." I can't be sure if she's speaking with sarcasm, because she always was extra fond of the seamen.

Charlotte laughs. "Marines, sailors, convicts. They're all the bloody same. A hole's a hole to them!"

"Yes," I weigh in on the conversation, pushing any fear I have away, wanting to maintain my part of this sisterhood. "From what I seen we women are only slightly more favourable than one of their own. Cunt or arse, it matters not." I couldn't imagine speaking such words like cunt or arse before I arrived on the prison hulk, but now I was one of them and could speak like a gutter whore at the best of times. It helped to fit in.

Jane, her full conscious returned, piped up bravely now. "All of 'em think they're using us, but really we's are using them!"

My companions are a saucy lot who I'd never met the likes of before my own arrest, even if house maids, of which I was one, aren't exactly pound sterling types ourselves. At first I was petrified of them and thought their mannerisms so rude, and many even tried to scare me, and I still don't feel I truly belonged among their ranks. But I managed to hold my own once they found I was originally sentenced to hang, then commuted to seven years transportation.

You see, speculation in regards to my crime was rife and a rumour started that I'd murdered a violent lover. I do not know how the rumour started, and the more I denied it to be true, which it definitely wasn't, the more people believed it to be so. And the stronger the rumour grew the more I was accepted. Once on board the prison hulk I found my reputation preceded me, and it followed me onto the Charlotte, where I was accepted into a kind of sisterhood without having to prove myself. And I've come to admire many of my companions, even sometimes the trouble makers and drunks.

Not all of them are fearsomely brave, or trouble makes or drunks, and some are genuinely sweet and caring. Such as Ann Beardsley, who right now is silent among us, grinning at one of the Marine Privates who keeps stealing glances over his shoulder at her. Private McCarthy, of course! Ann's told me all about him, the Irish fellow she met on the transport Friendship, back before she were transferred to the Charlotte along with her companion, Charlotte Ware. Ann and her Marine Private can't keep their eyes from one another and I begin to think that if true romance managed to blossom among the hell of a convict transport, there's still hope for the rest of us. Slim hope, but still, hope is all we have to hang onto.

The big Corporal who leads us turns and gives me a reassuring smile, which further adds to my hope, but even he jumps in fright at a flash of lightning and violent crack of thunder, which wipes the smile from my lips and causes me to jump too, and now fat drops of rain begin to fall. Doubling his pace, he calls out, "Come quick now, ladies."

Charlotte turns and elbows me in the arm and pokes Ann Beardsley in the chest. "He must be talking to youse two, because I ain't seen no others among us fit to be called a lady about. Henrietta and Ann, the ladies of the fleet." She cackles and I reckon she could be a witch from the stories I read in my old Master's library, yet Charlotte is jolly and her sisterly jibe gives me warm feelings despite the dampness from the plump raindrops.

Another odd and unexpected notion invades my thoughts to give me warm feelings, of the handsome Corporal rutting with me on this stormy night, and in this dreamy moment I feel my lady parts twinge, a brief jolt of pleasure bursting through me.

I'd known only one man before my arrest, and he was the Master of the household I worked for, the very man I was arrested for. The man who got away and let me take the fall. I were one of his house maids and he'd tell me I was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and quite the opposite of the rumours telling I'd killed a violent lover, he were always very kind and gentle with me, and as far as I knew the bastard was still very much alive.

I know I was a fool thinking we could get away with what we done, and when the watchmen came, it were me who was captured because we'd hidden our forgeries among my belongings. I couldn't deny the charges against me and they wouldn't have believed I were innocent, because I weren't, and they could hardly let me off with the quantity of our coins in my possession, so I was found guilty.

It were on the prison hulk laying in the harbour at Plymouth where I learnt how a girl could live more comfortable if she were to take a sailor. After some time I discovered a pretty girl could be selective, taking the offer of protection from an officer or kindly tar, and by the time I were on the Charlotte I knew my worth. I watched and waited to see who were the rough ones and the gentle ones, and I'd become friendly with the strong silent ones, who tended to be protective of me to the point I could exclude all other seamen and Marines. But here, landed in New South Wales, where there are more seamen, Marines and convicts than I'd previously met, hopelessly out numbering us, this night I have to trust Captain Tench has left us in friendly hands.

Located close to the shoreline somewhere between the convict camp and the Governor's camp, two tents sit side-by-side with a canvass awning over the front of both for shelter, making up the Marine's guard house. The rain lashes us heavily in the early evening, which is now terribly dark, and we duck under the awning, where the rain is pooling and pouring off the side, forming a small stream of water flowing among the rocks to the waters of the cove.

It's not always dark, because the sky's lit up regularly by the brightest flashes of lighting and scariest crashes of thunder I ever did see and hear. The Corporal ushers us inside one of the tents and orders one of the three Privates to watch over us.

"Hayes, take watch at the door of the tent and Mitchell, McCarthy and I will take the first guard watch under the canvas. We'll shout out if anyone tries to get in at our friends here but you're to make sure they're safe. We'll ensure no one sneaks past. Not that we'll see much in this storm. Oh, and like the Captain says, see what food you can scrounge up for our guests. We'll leave our rations, so see what you can put together."

"Aye," Private Hayes says with a grin, "I'll make them a feast fit for a Queen." He eyes us women with a glint of amusement on his face as we attempt to make ourselves comfortable in the dim tent.

I note Ann's forlorn gaze as her Marine, Private McCarthy, gives her a smile before turning to follow the Corporal for their turn to stand guard under the canvas awning on this wet and stormy night. The rain hammers the canvas and our petticoats are drenched, but I'm amazed how it's still quite warm, which I'm now grateful for too, because I am soaked to the skin.