The Guinea Thief - Chapter 17 - The Hulk

The view from the top of Portsdown hill was breathtaking. The island of Portsmouth, her green fields, her harbour, her ships were laid out like a tableau. The winter sun burst through the clouds and shafts of sun light shone down on the grey-green sea below. To the right of the island lay Portchester castle, her solid stone walls surrounded by green grass, and red dots. The red dots were soldiers going about their business; probably wondering if the war with France would ever end. And on the left lay another island. The one that had been his home in exile, Hayling Island. As Jack looked down at its familiar lines, so different from above, yet still the same, he wondered if he would ever walk it’s leafy lanes again. And in his heart he knew that he never would. He felt an unexpected pang. The oak trees, the muddy fields, the sand dunes, Eve’s Jersey cow and it’s delicious butter on bread in the morning. All gone forever. He wanted to reach out and touch it one last time, but could not.

There was one thing that Jack had overlooked as his eyes scanned the panorama below. Straight down and slightly to the left lay Farlington Marshes, a stretch of flat land that grew wetter and wetter until it gave up the pretence of being land at all and became the sea. A few cows and sheep grazed its salty pastures, but it was of little real use. No homes, no farms, just reeds and bogs. And beyond the marsh, out in the in the muddy reaches of Langstone Harbour, two wrecked ships a few hundred yards apart. Marooned and surrounded by mud.

A battery of canon stood proudly on the crest of the hill. The sentries never slept, watching over the thousands of people below, watching and waiting for a sign that battle had commenced. Two hundred years before other sentries had watched and waited for the Spanish Armada to come. Vigilance was ever the watchword. Portsmouth was too great a prize to ever allow its guards to sleep well at night.

The prisoners continued along the steep road which led to the city below. The drop down to sea level was rapid and the road wound around in order to make the angle easier for the many carriages that passed this way. The road was a sludgy grey colour, chalk mingled with rain water and mud. As the road began to flatten out they struck off to the left, leaving the main city road which continued on south.

Soon they were among the marshes and reeds of Farlington. Jack's range of vision dropped from five miles to five yards. The reeds were high around him, taller than men. A path had been cut through the reeds, it was just wide enough for a cart, but clearly little used. There was clearly little call to go this way. Finally they reached the end of the reed bed. The men stopped walking, uncertain what to do next. Ahead lay the Merciless and the Ceres, prison hulks which had seen better days. The guards sat down and their prisoners followed suit. A few took out their pipes and baccy and lit up, glad of the rest.

The watch on board ship were signalled and soon a small boat detached itself from the side of the nearest ship and headed towards them. As it approached the shore two of the men inside jumped out and heaved the boat up the mud. There was no dry land here so it was tied to a mooring post, set there for that very purpose. The one remaining man on board got out. He was a burly man, his arm muscles bulging through his grey military jacket. The buttons were dull.

“I’m Griffiths, Sergeant at Arms of the Mercliess, your new home. I’m responsible for the discipline on board the ship. But before I let you on board, I have some matters of protocol to run through. First of all I’m going to issue you with your roll numbers. We don’t use names on board ship. Then we are going to clean you up a bit. We can’t let you on board with any nasty diseases which could spread through the ship. And finally we will issue you with your slops. Guard them well, if you lose any of your clothes or bedding, it doesn’t get replaced. Unless you can pay. If you lose your kit you get flogged, if you forget your number you get flogged, if you forget to call me Sir or Sergeant, you get flogged. If you give me lip, or any of the guards, you get flogged. If you refuse to work you get flogged. If you fight, you get flogged. Are you following my drift?” said Sergeant Griffiths.

While he had been talking the two men who had accompanied him unloaded their small cargo. Blankets, jackets, trousers and a wooden bucket which one of them filled with sea water.

“Right, line up.”

The prisoners got to their feet, and ambled into a makeshift line.

“I said line up. You call that a bloody line?”

The men looked at each other and saw the line wavered and bunched in the middle. They quickly straightened up. That was probably a flogging matter too.

“Better. Not much, but we will get there. You.” He pointed to the first man in the line. “Stand here.”

The man walked towards him. When he stopped in front of the Sergeant, the Sergeant punched him full in the stomach. The man fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

“I said address me as Sir or Sergeant. From now on you are fifty-one forty-eight. Five, One, Four, Eight.”

The Sergeant lifted his foot to kick the man.

“Yes Sir. 5148 Sir.”

“Better. Now stand up. Petty Officer Greystone, if you would do the honours.”

“Yes Sergeant.”

The taller of the two guards came forward. He had a tattoo across his left cheek. It was of an anchor and chain. He brought with him the bucket of sea water. From a bag that was slung around his shoulder he pulled out a pair of scissors.

“Shirt off.” said Petty Officer Greystone.

“Yes Sir.” said prisoner 5148.

Greystone began to clip off all the man’s hair. 5148 had a long grey pony tail. Greystone cut it of with a single snip. It fell to the floor complete still tied with a ribbon. The guard set about the remainder of his head until 5148's hair was half an inch long all over. Then he set about the man’s beard. This too was cut as close to his chin as possible. When he had finished Greystone took a step back to admire his handiwork. The man’s scalp was flecked with blood where the guard had been less than careful with his cutting and snipped his skin. Despite the bloodiness the guard appeared to be pleased with the result. 5148 was now urecogniseable.

“Take off your clothes.” said Greystone.

“Yes Sir.” said 5148

The man stripped down to his underpants. The sun had disappeared into the grey clouds above. It was a freezing cold December day. His grey skin was covered in goosebumps. The second guard picked up his bucket of water.

“All of them, 5148.” said the Greystone.

5148 gingerly pulled off his pants and stepped out of them. His humiliation was now total. Or so he thought.

“All yours Mr Scrivenshawe.”

The second guard, Scrivenshawe threw the bucket of cold water over him, pulled a birch scrubbing brush out of his bag and a bar of soap. He rubbed some soap into the brush and then scrubbed 5148 from head to foot, like he was a muddy dog. The man’s skin turned lobster red, and bled.

While Scrivenshawe was scrubbing 5148, Greystone went and refilled the bucket. On his return a moment later the Sergeant pointed to the second man in line.

“You, you’re next.”

Sergeant Griffiths gave the man his new name. Fifty-one, forty-nine, and Greystone the tattooed guard gave him his new look.

Soon enough it was Jack’s turn to be renamed. He became Fifty-One, Fifty-Six. After the scrubbing he received his new clothes, black and white striped jacket and slops. Looking around at the fourteen men standing in line next to him, shorn of hair and wearing magpie suits, there was no mistaking them now for anything but prisoners. Their individuality had been rubbed out. And just to ensure they realized how permanent their loss of identity was, their clothes were thrown onto the fire which the Captain’s guards had built in order to keep warm. Once the prisoners were loaded on board the cutter, the Captain and his men took their leave of Sergeant Griffiths and headed back to Portsmouth, the Captain clearly in eager anticpation of his appointment with his mistress at the Spice Island Inn.

On board the Merciless the prisoners were assigned to their bunks. All of the new prisoners were assigned to the lower deck. Robert’s bunk was on the upper deck. The three of them shook hands.

“If I don’t see you before I’ll see you both when we assemble for duty in the morning. I’ll see if I can get us put on the same work detail.”

The lower deck was fetid and rotten. Even in winter the air was hot and uncomfortable. Many of the prisoners Jack saw in the adjoining bunks seemed sick. They coughed and spluttered their greetings to their new bedfellows. The man nearest to him had paper thin skin. His hands were so wrinkled and pinched you could almost see through them to the bone and sinew beneath.

“How long have you been here?”

“Can’t say. Long time. They gave me three years. So I guess it’s not as long as that.”

Jack put his bedding down on the hammock.

“Though sometimes I wonder if they remember to let you go at the end. I’m sure Twenty-nine, twenty-two over there has done his time. He’d already been here a long time when I got here. “
He pointed to a wizened old man who was all bones.

“Been here since he was fifteen he told me.”

“Fifteen. But he looks a hundred!”

“Nah, nah. He’s not been there that long! No-one can survive that long.”

“Hey 2922. How old do you thinks you is?”

The old man shuffled his hip bone and sat up “Reckon I‘ll be thirty-two this year.”

Jack gulped. How had he been here so long and what had happened to him?

The next day roll call began at seven, before the dawn. Standing next to their bunks each group of ten prisoners had a guard assigned to check them all off. There was little danger of them absconding in the night, but some never made it to the morning, and were found mouths open, rigid in their bunks. Typhoid, hulk, scarlet, there was a different fever for every day of the working week. That morning all ten were present and correct. They went to the galley and stood patiently in line waiting for their slops. Breakfast was just as Robert had described it two months before, rice soup. Watery rice, seasoned with a hint of salt. Jack took the bowl that was handed him back to his bunk and slurped it greedily. It was warm and wet and filled his stomach. He thought back to the roast chicken of the day before and wondered when he would get such food again.

Breakfast over the prisoners assembled on the deck. Dawn was breaking in the east. The sky was pinkish red, a sign of rain to come. The prisoners were put into work details, based on their level of fitness. The fittest were sent to the rope house in the dockyard, heavy back breaking work on long and heavy anchor ropes; the less fit were sent to the sail house, darning huge rents in the sails caused by storm damage or battle. Some sails could not be salvaged and those were cut up to make patches for others. Those not fit enough to work in the dockyard worked on the hulk, swabbing the decks, cleaning out the pig sty and the chicken run. Robert had managed to get Fred and Jack assigned to the same detail as him. They were taken by rig out to the dockyard, a pleasant thirty minute trip in the fresh morning air. A light drizzle fell on their faces, but after the rancid airlessness below decks, the rain refreshed rather than dampened their spirits.

The work was hard. Jack’s detailed was assigned to the rocket shed and they spent the day in the arsenal cleaning rust from old shot and cannon balls preparing them for re-use, nothing was ever wasted. At the end of a long and tiring day Jack and the others were ferried back to the Merciless and fell upon their bowls of barley soup with relish. Fred grinned at Jack

“Don’t worry Fifty One Fifty Six, we’ll be getting a nice bit of pork and a pint on Sunday.”

“If we make to Sunday that is.” He added with a wink.

The next day Jack rose and he did it all over again. By the end of the second week he and Fred had proved themselves worthy of a bunk on the top deck. It was a small thing, but it made a big difference. Fred kept them all entertained every evening with a story. After all while Jack fell into a sort of rhythm. Life was very ordered. As Robert had said eventually he could not remember a time when he had not been wearing leg irons. On dry days the lucky ones got outside work detail, cleaning out the guns on the battlements or Long Tom the 21 foot gun at the dockyard gate. Jack managed to avoid the floggings. But some of the others were not so lucky.

The punishments were brutal. Prisoners were laid across a barrel, arms and legs extended, and the Sergeant at arms administered the regulation number of lashes from his cat o nine tails. Each tail bit into the skin of it’s victim. After just twenty lashes their back was cut to pieces. Salt water was thrown on the open wound to help it heal and stop the skin rotting. The salt water was reapplied as often as they could stand it. But sometimes the wounds did not heal. Clean bandages were impossible to get hold of and the wounds easily got infected. A simple punishment could become a death sentence.

The days and weeks passed by, February turned into March. With Spring new jobs were assigned, they worked on repairing the butts, large mounds of earth against which the guns were practised. The winter rain and snow had taken their toll, but the strengthening sunshine had began to dry out the earth and practice could begin again.

The dockyard began to buzz with talk of a peace treaty with Napoleon. Jack could not remember a time when England had not been at war. The thought of peace was almost shocking. Everyone longed for it, an end to the wretchedness of war, a chance to rebuild their broken country, before it too began to be at war with itself like the French. Like it had one hundred years before. Peace. Jack rolled the word around in his mouth. He liked the feel of it.

“Forty-eight Seventy-nine, if we do sign a peace treaty with Boney, will it make any difference to us?”

“I’d say not much. We are still going to be transported. “ answered Robert.

Fred added helpfully. “But at least we won’t get shot at as we sail round the bay of Biscay.”

“Yes Fifty-one, Fifty Two , that’s true. We won’t get shot at.” Robert laughed. “But apart from that Fifty-one Fifty-six, honestly it will make no difference. We are bound for Australia lad, and nothing will change that. It’s just a question of when, not if.”

The next Sunday at the weekly prayer service the theme of the sermon was redemption. And the preacher was a good Christian who felt it his moral duty to save even the most wretched of sinners from their wickedness. And where better to do that than aboard one His Majesty’s Prison Ships.

After a rousing rendition of Bunyan’s “To Be a Pilgrim” the clergyman set to work on his flock for the day.

“Perhaps you men are not aware that Bunyan wrote those immortal words as he languished in gaol.” He paused savouring the drama.

“I see from your faces that you did not. Yes a fellow prisoner exhorts you all to be Valiant and fight with all your might to be a pilgrim. Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us never to give up on a sinner. And that all the angels and his father in heaven rejoiced when just one sinner repented of his ways and was returned to the fold. So I urge you now, especially those of you who are about to travel to the new world, turn over a new leaf and start life afresh. For though just punishment must follow every crime, once you have served your sentence you will have the opportunity to secure for yourself the full rights of free citizenship in Australia. I say to you now, seize this opportunity for a new life with both hands. Take this unique chance to show the world that you are men of integrity, frugality, industry and perseverance. One day you will be free men again on the other side of this earth. I look forward to that day and I am sure you do too. When that day comes do not revert to your old ways of drunkenness and wickedness. The devil has done his worst and torn you away from all those you have loved. Begin again with pride and dignity, be valiant, be a pilgrim.”

“I’d like to read to you the words of Psalm 19,
“ The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

“Remember these words, wherever you are in the world, even if you find yourself at the end of the world, the word of the lord our father will find you there. Listen and believe.”

The reverend father stopped and wiped his brow with his sleeve. He looked around his audience of men tough as old boots who were wiping the tears from their eyes and nodded appreciatively.

“And when you begin this new life, whether in prosperity or adversity, have a kindly thought for the old minister who would always have the warmest wishes for your happiness. I wish you who are about to set off on this tremendous journey, Godspeed, a fair wind and the blessings of the Lord upon you.”

After the service the men filed into the galley to collect their pork and their pint. Their heads were busy and Jack could tell that they could were all talking about the prospect of being drafted for Australia.

“Forty-eight seven-nine, do you know who gets picked to go and how? When do we find out if it’s going to be us?”

“I’ve not seen a draft all the time I’ve been here. They don’t sail in the winter. Now the storms are over I guess it must be time. It’ll take at least three months to get to Australia, there’s only a short window in which the ships can set sail, clear Biscay, and hope to make it round the Horn. Thirty-six, seventy four. You’ve been here the longest. Do you know what happens?”

A man on bunk along from Robert looked up from his plate.

“They takes the fittest on the ship. It’s a terrible crossing, more often than not and they needs you to stand a good chance of getting there alive. Apparently in the First Fleet they had too many die. It didn’t look good, so they made sure they only took thems as was fit and well. Apart from that, they looks to see if you are likely to make trouble. Once they had a mutiny on board a prison ship, the prisoners managed to overpower the guards at Cape Town and threw the captain overboard. I heard he was a right bastard. So he deserved it. But that means they look to see which ones work hard and do as their told. Sometimes they’ll take twenty, sometimes more. It depends how many ships are going. But it’ll be soon. I’ve heard of this preacher, the comes the week before a draft and he always makes the same speech about John Bunyan. Doesn’t pay to get us too excited and then nothing happens for a month. Course the final day depends on the weather and the tide, but any day now. You watch my words lads. Any day now.”