Transported

This short story received an award and was published in the Stringybark Times Past collection in 2020. All stories for the competition had to be based on historical facts. These are mine:

On 26th January1788, the First Fleet, under Captain Arther Philip, sailed into Sydney Cove and claimed the land for Britain. Eleven ships arrived at Botany Bay between the 18th and 20th January but the area was deemed unsuitable for settlement. Convicts were kept on board the ships until they were moored in Sydney Cove. Three ships carried female convicts. I have imagined that day, as seen through the eyes of one female prisoner. History tells us little about the comvicts. I have given at least one of them, the hope for a better life in New South Wales.

.TRANSPORTED

Creeping from their holds, the convicts breathe in fresh, salty air, untainted by the vomit, sweat, urine and faeces of their cramped pens. They gaze on a land of strangely shaped trees with white trunks and leaves that point to the ground. Chests swell as these scarred creatures catch a glimpse of new possibilities. Men and women, discards from the land of their birth, face lives that must be better than the ones they’ve left behind. At least that is what they hope for on this morning, the 26^th January, 1788.

     One young woman stands out in this heaving mass. Around her the pristine surfaces of polished wooden decks and brass bells are the antithesis of filthy flesh and tattered rags.

     She, too, wears ragged clothing but her eyes are bright, her cheeks still have a pinkish glow. Her fingernails are blackened and her hair, once the copper-coloured beacon that inflamed men’s desires, now hangs in matted clumps around her shoulders. She pouts a kiss at the first mate as he approaches the female prisoners. He’s her best chance.

     No fraternizing with the convicts. Was that the regulation? He’d ignored it, as had all the others. The herd was checked over every night, the toss of any small object determining who won the juiciest piece of tits and arse and soft, bruised thighs. Ripe and over-ripe the women became as the journey continued for months and months of baking sun and blue sea. While tempests raged the women had a rest. No time for frolicking when the crew had ropes to pull and sails to fasten in the gut-wrenching fury of ocean and sky.

     But today they’ve arrived. Well, not all of them. Josie, who made gloves for wealthy Londoners and got caught stealing a pair, went overboard on one of those black cloud days. And Betsy—quiet, fifteen year-old Betsy—had simply melted away amongst the rotting potatoes and stench of shit. Some of the women were pregnant, even before they left England. A few babies survived and after all the goings on during the voyage, the population in this new land should soon increase.

     Today the sky is clear, the bluest blue that any of them have ever seen and the shoreline is clean and welcoming. Every female prisoner on that ship wants to stand at the railing, to suck in the unpolluted space of this strange new land; a land that will become home and the chance of a new, better life.

     “Get ‘em below!” The captain bellows across the deck.

     Whips crack and boots crunch on unprotected limbs as the two-legged animals are herded back to their rightful place. A slatted grating squashes hopes and wistful fantasies.

     Except for that bright-eyed woman. The faded red of her skirt tucked around her legs, arms wrapped across her chest, she squats down behind the capstan.

     The crew—in their tired uniforms, still flashing buttons and stripes in the right places, but with everything else coming apart at the seams and fraying at the edges—rush about, anxious to finish their duties and get off this crate of junk, human and otherwise.

     She’s safe for the moment. Has she the courage to look up? Dare she pray for a different kind of life? Is there any point in praying to a God who never listens, who doesn’t seem to care for the likes of her?

     She smells the captain’s leather boots. Mouse-like, she trembles. Tucking her head into the folds of her skirt she hopes, like a child, that if she doesn’t look she won’t be seen. Her heart drums so loudly she’s sure he can hear it.

     His heels click together. His hand is rough on her bare arm, but he only tugs her firmly, not wrenching bone from socket, which she has come to expect. His fingernails dig into her flesh when she tries to pull away.

     Her head stays low. She’s learnt not to lift her eyes in these situations. That’s okay when they want her body, when she feels the heat of their lust and knows that, despite her insignificance, she can still sting. He’s not one of them. His woman is with him on this piece of his world. She can’t play with this one; can’t taunt him and trade her flesh, her youthful, warm furriness, for an extra morsel or moment of freedom.

     He yells to an underling, loosens his grip and passes her, like an unwashed rag, to the lackey. Vigorously, he wipes his hand on his trousers, removing her taint from his lordliness and stomps away as the grating is lifted and she’s flung down below.

     Others move away as she lands. There’s no sympathy when jealousies are all about the next meal or the scrap of floor where you sleep. She is the officer’s pet. She won’t get anything, not even a helping hand, from her fellow prisoners.

     Sitting on the floor, she rubs her right ankle which twisted as she fell. The pain is not too bad. She should be fine by nightfall, able to ply her wares again. A naughty smile puckers her lips. The captain likes her—anyone else would have been flogged.

     Pretending meekness, she stays on the floor, eyes closed, spirit floating away to the scribbly, ragged trees and the clean water lapping the shore.

     Others may drop out along the days, but she will make it. There’s room for her to grow out there and plenty of men who want what she knows how to give. Willingly she’ll fulfil their desires, but they will have to pay. She’ll stash away their trinkets, grow in power, and one day, when her time of serving is over, she’ll build herself a fortress, lock up her heart and none of them will be able to hurt her again.