The next day Lieutenant John Johnstone—another Scotchman—boarded in the company of a Portsmouth doctor, who took one look at the victims, withdrew in a hurry with his handkerchief plastered over his nose, sent more marines to hospital, and declared that in his opinion the disease was as malignant as it was incurable. He did not employ the word “plague,” but this omission only served to highlight his private diagnosis. All he could suggest was that fresh meat and fresh vegetables be served to everybody on board at once.
It is like Gloucester Gaol, thought Richard. As soon as that place held more people than it could bear, it produced a disease to cull the flock. So too with Alexander.
“We will stay well if we remain where we are, confine our exercise to deck we have washed, wipe our bowls and dippers out with oil of tar, filter our water and keep taking a spoonful of malt extract. This disease came aboard from Justitia, I am sure of it, which means it is forward.”
That evening they ate hard bread and boiled beef as usual, but the beef was fresh rather than salted, and a pot of cabbage and leeks came with it. They tasted like ambrosia.
After that they were forgotten, as was the order to supply fresh food. No one came near them save for two terrified young marines (Davy Evans and Tommy Green were gone) deputed to feed them salt beef and the inevitable hard bread. The days passed in a dull, brooding silence broken only by the moans of the sick and an occasional terse conversation. February turned into March, and March dragged away while the sick continued to die and were simply left where they lay.
When finally someone opened the forward hatch it was not to remove the bodies; 25 new convicts were thrust into the freezing, filthy air of the prison.
“Fucken Christ!” came the voice of John Power. “What do the fucken buggers think they’re doing? There is sickness down here and they fill us up to overflowing again! Christ, Christ, Christ!”
An interesting man, John Power, thought Richard. He rules up forward, the flash boy from the Old Bailey and the London Newgate who usually speaks in plain English. Now he possesses not only the hospital platforms, but a new detachment of inmates. Poor bastard. Alexander had trimmed from 200 down to 185, now there are 210 of us.
By the 13th of March four more men were dead; six corpses lay on the hospital platforms, several of them there for over a week. No one could be persuaded to come down and touch them; by now it was commonly known that the disease was plague.
Not long after dawn on the 13th of March the forward hatch was opened and a party of marines wearing gloves and with scarves muffling their faces took the six bodies away.
“Why?” asked Will Connelly. “Not that I am sorry to see them go, mind. Just—why?”
“I would say that one of the big wigs is coming to visit,” said Richard. “Tidy up, lads, and look bursting with health.”
Major Robert Ross arrived shortly after the bodies had gone, accompanied by Lieutenant John Johnstone, Lieutenant James Shairp and a man who appeared to be a doctor, judging from his manner. A slender, handsome fellow with a long nose, enormous blue eyes and a pretty little curl of fair hair on his broad white brow. They brought lamps and an escort of ten marine privates, who preceded them down the after hatch and filed along larboard and starboard aisles like men being sent to their doom, young enough to be intimidated, old enough to know what sort of specter squatted here.
The chamber filled with a soft golden glow; Richard finally saw the shape of his fate in all its terrible detail. The sick now occupied all 34 berths which sat isolated in the middle section forward of the tables; beyond them, where the foremast went through near the bows, was a bulkhead much narrower than the one astern behind Richard’s cot. The double tier of platforms was continuous all the way around, it contained no break whatsoever. That is how they do it! That is how they have managed to squeeze 210 poor wretches into a space 35 feet at its widest and less than 70 feet from end to end. They have packed us in like bottles on shelving. No wonder we die. Compared to this, Gloucester Gaol was a paradise—at least we got out into the fresh air and could work. Here is only darkness and stench, immobility and madness. I keep prating to my people of survival, but how can we survive this place? Dear God, I despair. I despair.
All three of the marine officers were Scotch, Ross having the broadest burr and Johnstone the least. A dour and sandy man, Ross, slight of build, nondescript of face save for a thin, determined mouth and a pair of cold, pale grey eyes.
First he toured the establishment in a leisurely fashion, commencing on the starboard side. He walked as if participating in a funeral, head going from side to side with clockwork timing, steps slow and deliberate. At the isolation cots he paused, it seemed quite without fear, to examine the sick in company with his medical man, murmuring inaudibly to this attractive fellow, who kept shaking his head emphatically. Major Ross continued around the curve between the isolated platforms and those at the foremast, then began to walk down the larboard aisle toward the stern.
At Dring below and Isaac Rogers above he stopped, looked down at the deck beneath his feet, gestured to one of the privates and directed that the boy should pull out the night buckets, which had been emptied and rinsed out. His eyes rested on Ike, trembling as he lay with his head on Joey Long’s lap.
“This man is sick,” he said to Johnstone rather than to the doctor. “Put him with the others.”
“No, sir,” said Richard instantly, too shocked to think of prudence. “It is not what you think, we have none of that down here. He nearly died from seasickness, that is all.”
An extraordinary look came over the Major’s face, of horror and comprehension combined; he reached up and took Ike’s hand, squeezed it. “I know what ye go through, then,” he said. “Water and dry biscuit, nothing else helps.”
A marine major who got dreadfully seasick!
The eyes traveled then to Richard’s face, to all the faces in those two last upper cots, assimilating the cropped hair, the damp clothing and rags strung on lines between the beams, recently shaven chins, a certain air of pride having nothing to do with defiance. “Ye have kept very clean,” he said, and plucked at the matting. “Aye, very clean.”
No one replied.
Major Ross turned and stepped onto a bench just where the open hatch provided him with a little fresh air. He had not betrayed a sign of disgust at the vapors which swirled through the prison, but he did seem more comfortable on this perch.
“My name,” he announced in a parade-ground voice, “is Major Robert Ross. Commandant of Marines on this expedition, and also Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales. I am the sole commander of your persons and your lives. Governor Phillip has other concerns. Mine are all ye. This ship is not at all satisfactory—men are dying in her and I intend to find out why. Mr. William Balmain here is surgeon on Alexander and will commence his duties tomorrow. Lieutenant Johnstone is senior marine officer aboard and Lieutenant Shairp is his second-in-command. It seems ye have had few fresh provisions in over two months. That will be rectified while this ship is in port. This deck will be fumigated, which will necessitate the removal of most of ye to other accommodation. Only those seventy-two men in the cots adjacent to the stern bulkhead will remain on board and will be expected to help.”
He gestured to his two lieutenants, who sat down together at the table alongside his booted feet and produced paper, ink and quills out of a writing case Lieutenant Shairp carried. “I will now proceed to take a census,” the Major said. “When I point at a man, he will give me his name and the name of the hulk from which he boarded. You can start.” He pointed at Jimmy Price.
