The Guinea Thief - Final Chapter

The skin around Jack’s shackles had thickened and hardened in three months. The painful weals and blisters had healed over and left purple scars in their place. The guard threaded a chain through his shackle and then moved on to the next man. In all one hundred men had been selected for transportation on the Perseus. Forty of them were from the Merciless.
That morning they had been on deck as usual ready for their work detail. Instead of the usual gang of twelve men, Jack, Robert and Fred found themselves in a larger group of forty. They climbed down the ladder into a lighter and soon they were on their way towards Portsmouth. About sixty remained on deck, in groups of twelve as usual. A second lighter was alongside to take them. It was not till they were on the lighter that the forty men were told they were headed for the Perseus, and a three month voyage to the New World.
“Why didn’t they tell us on the ship?” asked Jack.

“Didn’t want to cause a riot. Some people get pretty desperate to leave. Others don’t want to go” piped up one of their fellow prisoners. “Safest thing is to wait till we are on our way and then tell us.”
Once they disembarked from the lighter onto the dockyard quay they were assembled into columns of two, ten men tethered together. Once they were all in place they began the slow shuffle along the dockyard cobbles, some of the guards held their cat o’nine tails in their hands, showing they were ready to use them if needed.
Jack was relieved the months of waiting were over, but he knew the Perseus was going to be as a big a challenge as the hulk had been. At least on the hulk he had been allowed off the ship. Those moments working in the fresh winter air were the times he had felt most alive, and were what had probably kept him alive. The poor wretches too sick to work had languished in the stinking air of the Merciless and as each day passed they sank deeper into their own skin, until all that was left was the rattle of their chests as they attempted to breathe. The workers had better rations too, although better in this case was only that their food that was not mouldy, and on Sundays they got meat to build them back up for the week ahead.
The man next to him coughed, spittle dribble into his beard. The familiar rattle made Jack look across. His neighbour had stopped to catch his breath and Jack urged him to keep moving. The man pulled his threadbare blanket tight around his bony shoulders, nodded to Jack and shuffled forward. But the hesitation had been enough and the familiar crack of the whip sang in the air. Jack’s neighbour staggered and fell against Jack. He weighed nothing. Underneath the blanket was just sinew and bone. Jack held him for a moment and saw a man who had given up hope. Jack wondered why they had chosen to take this man on such a voyage. It would have been kinder to put a noose around his neck and hang him. This was not a life, it was a long and lingering death. He would never live to see Australia.
Australia the word sounded so strange to Jack. Before the trial he had never heard of it. Since then he had heard tales of strange animals; Fred had told him of the giant rabbits that could leap fences, birds the size of a sheep that could not fly. The land he said was hot and dry with miles of desert that had no end. It was a strange country and Jack could not really believe it would become his.
From the wharf they passed the quartermasters stores, warehouses piled high with rum, sugar, ships biscuit and flour. Guards lounged outside protecting the stores from pilfering, although Jack knew that just outside the gates you could buy whatever you wanted from the quartermasters stores if you knew the right person and paid the right price. After the stores were the barracks; tall red brick buildings built to house a navy; a huge clock hung above the doorway so that there was no excuse for being late on watch. Ahead of him he could see the dockyard walls that marked the start of the world outside. He had not stepped foot on land outside the dockyard since the day he had become prisoner 5156. Unicorn Gate was shut and two marines stood guard their gold buttons sparkling in the sun. The prisoners waited patiently in line while their guards chatted with the sentries. The black iron bolt was pulled back and the two doors were heaved open.

Across the road stood the Elephant Inn, the first of twenty taverns on Broad Street. As Jack looked at the familiar sights and sounds he wondered if he would ever set foot in an English tavern again. That night on Warblington shore had changed his life forever and he had no idea what his future in Australia would bring. All he had learnt about Australia was from other prisoners, but none had actually been there. Thousands of prisoners had been sent there, but very few had ever come back. Soon they had reached the Round Tower, its cannons trained on the entrance to the harbour. From the Round Tower the battlement wall ran along the shore all the way to the Square Tower at the far end of Broad Street. The wall was high, too high to see over the top, an occasional sentry or cannon was the only thing visible bar the sky. The wall was forty feet high and three foot thick. His guards stopped in front of a small wooden doorway built into the battlement wall. On the other side of the wall lay the sea.
The door of the sally port was opened and beyond was a short wooden jetty and the grey green sea. Anchored twenty yards off shore was Jack’s new home, The Perseus, waves flecked with foam rippled onto the shore.. Her sails were unfurled and each one was covered in three foot black arrows pointing upwards. The tell tale sign of a prison ship, just to ensure all those who approached here were aware of the nature of her cargo.
“You might as well tell em we all have the plague.” said the coughing man. “What are we lepers?”
All the time Jack had been on the hulk he had felt unjustly punished. Having Robert as a father meant that he had never considered smuggling to be a real crime. It wasn’t like murder or theft, those were obviously morally wrong. But smuggling seemed to be a crime without a victim. The government lost it’s taxes, but that didn’t feel wrong, no-one was hurt. Robert had always said that the ordinary people benefited from smuggling as without them they would not be able to afford their tea and sugar as the tax made it too expensive.
The first twenty prisoners were marched through the Sally Port to a rowing boat waiting on the shore. Jack and the other men left on the city side of the wall realised that if they were all going to be loaded onto the ship twenty men a t a time, they could be in for a long wait. They sat down as best they could. A few pulled out cards and dice. The coughing man pulled out his pipe and lit it.
“Where’d you get the baccy old fella?”
“Don’t you ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.”
Ave you go enough to get to Port Jackson?”
“Port Jackson! I’ll thank my lucky stars if I make it till tomorrow. My pipe is my only pleasure left and I’ll smoke it as long I draw breath.”
“Jack!”
Jack looked up with a start. No-one had used his name in weeks. On the hulk he was just ‘5156’. Even Robert and Fred had had to use it. If they were caught using first names they could be flogged.
“Delphine!”
He stood up and pulled her towards him. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“Albert. Albert heard that the Perseus was being loaded with prisoners. I came yesterday too, but you weren’t here. Yesterday’s prisoners said they came from Wool Witch.”
Her kisses tasted of salt. He wiped the tears from her face, he could not tell which were hers and which were his.
“How’s Eliza coping?”
“She’s not. She’s so worried about you, she isn’t looking after herself properly. We are all worried about you.”
“Tell her not to worry. I’ll be fine. It’s a whole new world out there. ”
“Jack I want to come with you.”
“But you can’t, it’s a prison ship.”
“Perhaps they need someone to help in the galley?”
Jack brought her hands to his mouth and kissed them.
“Delphine, my Darling. I wouldn’t want you to be on this ship with me. It’s a terrible voyage and a terrible place I’m going to. You don’t deserve that. Stay here.”
“I don’t care how terrible it is. I will come. If I can’t come on this ship, I will come on another. Wait for me. “
“You would do that for me? Give up everything for me?”
“Yes. I would give up everything for you. I have nothing to lose except you. I have no home now.”
Jack looked into her eyes.
“Then I will wait for you and I will count the days till I see you again. Let me take this as a reminder.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the lips.
The prisoners next to him stood up, it was his turn to board.
“I must go. I’ll see you on the other side of the world. However long it takes, I promise I’ll be waiting.”

THE END