Convict Queen Read online

  And soon he was dead.

  There could be other problems to cope with. February was hotter than Molly had ever known, and there was no rain for weeks. The animals suffered and many died. Molly tried to nurture her seeds, but carrying water from the water holes was tedious and what she did manage to get did little good. Frank was crawling, and the only way she could manage was to tie him up in their hut while she worked.

  Fortunately he was an easy child, and Ted looked happier than Molly had ever known him.

  'It'll be good when you start breeding,' he said.

  She didn't reply. She had been surprised not to have become pregnant from Joshua's almost nightly attentions, but one of the free women on board had told her the privations and the poor food might well account for this. She had been relieved. A child would have complicated her life, and while she had become fond of Frank, she knew that if a chance of escaping back to England came she could leave him without a pang.

  Ted, after the first few days, was less importunate than Joshua, and she was healthier than she had been aboard the Neptune, so she blessed her good fortune in not finding herself pregnant.

  Then there was a new problem. A fierce wind arose, killing many birds and bats which were driven into Parramatta, the corpses littering the ground and fouling the water.

  In April Clara came to Molly's hut with more news.

  'They say some more 'ave escaped, wi' a woman and some children,' she reported. 'How dared they? They're bound to die. But they're putttin' guards on all the boats now, an' sayin' on'y small boats can be built.'

  'I don't know why they bother,' Ted said. 'They've reduced the rations again, so you'd think they'd be pleased to 'ave fewer to feed.'

  Soon after this the drought ended, the ground could be worked, and Molly sowed more seeds to replace those that had died, and looked forward to having fresh vegetables.

  *

  Clara had more news.

  'They're plannin' a big feast in June, on King's birthday,' she told Molly. 'It's all ter do with changin' the name. I don't know as I'll be able to think of it as Parramatta.'

  Molly, recalling the time she had drunk far too much rum, determined that this time she would be more careful.

  'That's an odd name? Why do they want to change it?'

  'It means where the eels sit down, they say,' Clara said and giggled. 'I never knew eels could sit. But I'd not say no ter some jellied eels, like I 'ad back at 'ome!' she added, sighing.

  It mattered little to Molly. The Marines and the Corps were involved, some pardons were given, but she could not see why changing the name of the place was so important.

  What she found of greater interest was the news of more ships arriving, with stores that were sorely needed, but also more convicts to feed. Some were sent to Parramatta, and Molly, who had begun to know most of the people living there, soldiers as well as convicts, suddenly became aware of strangers.

  More huts had been built, and new settlements started nearby. The ships had brought goods for sale as well as food and convicts. They were expensive, but Ted came back from Sydney one day with a length of cotton material for Molly.

  'Ye've worn out that other dress,' he said, and seemed abashed.

  'You're kind to me,' Molly said, and for almost the first time kissed him voluntarily.

  'We should be wed,' he said, pulling her close.

  'I've got a husband, in England,' Molly said, and sighed. It would not be so bad a life married to a man like Ted, apart from her determination to try and escape one day. Not, she thought with a shudder, on a small boat such as Mary Bryant and her babies had ventured in six months earlier. She would find a different way, somehow.

  It was a long time since she had thought of William. He'd abandoned her, so why did she feel obliged to use her marriage as an excuse not to marry Ted? She knew women who had married, saying their husbands in England were dead, or had died on the journey. Who would ever find out if she did the same?

  'Would you ever be able to go back to England?' she asked suddenly.

  'It's a better life 'ere,' he said. 'I've no wish ter go back and get involved in these wars they're talking about, in Belgium. Or get sent to America.'

  'No,' Molly agreed. She could not depend on Ted to help her get back home, so it was best to keep on as they were.

  *

  Occasionally Ted took her to Sydney, and she marvelled at how muddled it still looked, with shacks straggling all over the place and no kind of order. But if she could get there by herself, with time to manage an escape, she might one day get back to England.

  She had decided the only possible way was by one of the ships that brought out the convicts. They had to return to England, and surely she could either stow away or find one of the officers to help her.

  With this in mind, she tried to explore the wharves whenever Ted left her to herself while he conducted his own business at the barracks. She had to keep this a secret. He would not help her. No one in authority would. It was difficult, on these few short visits. She needed to be in Sydney itself, but Ted liked Parramatta, he would never move. But one day she knew she would get away from this harsh land.

  *

  She was working in the garden one day, weeding, when out of the corner of her eye she saw a man standing watching her. She ignored him. Many of the new convicts had assumed she was one of the loose women who would go with any man, but she had soon put them right, and if any were too persistent Ted had words with them, and often more than just words, making it clear she was his woman and his alone.

  This one moved closer, and she stood up to face him. He looked gaunt, and his hat, with a wide brim, shielded his eyes, but there was something familiar. Then he pulled off the hat and Molly gasped in shock.

  'William! Is it really you? How did you get here?'

  'Same way as you,' he said, 'but I dain't think I'd be able to find you. They told me lots o' folk died on the ships you came with.'

  'You're a convict? Did they catch you, after you ran away?'

  He shook his head, and grinned. Molly could have hit him. Didn't he care he'd left her behind to take the blame for his thieving?

  'No, I cheated 'em them. It were summat else.'

  'So what did you steal this time?'

  'Nothin'! They cheated on me, left me to tek the blame.'

  'Serves you right after you did that to me.'

  Molly laughed. She was still bitter about the way he'd deserted her after stealing the flax, so it seemed a just result.

  He refused to tell her why he had been tried at Warwick Assizes. All he would say was that he'd been on the run since he escaped from Corfton, and had been sentenced to fourteen years.

  'So you don't know how they are at home? How the little ones are? Who's looking after them?'

  'You don't think I'd dare go back, do you? They'd 'ave given me up.'

  'It looks as though it didn't need them, if you got into trouble somewhere else,' she said.

  'I tell yer, it weren't my fault! Forget it! I came on the Barrington, fastest voyage yet, they said.'

  He looked at her garden, where her vegetables were growing.

  'Whose is this?' he asked. 'They said some people were given land. You workin' for one of the officers?'

  Molly thought swiftly. William had always had a hot temper, and if he thought she was living with Ted he would cause trouble, and probably be flogged at the least. Much as she despised him for permitting her to take all the blame for his theft, she didn't want to be responsible for that. More than one convict had died from a flogging.

  'I look after a baby,' she said.

  'Whose?' he snapped before she could explain. 'Is it yours?'

  'Of course not. One of the Marines, his wife died. It's far better than cleaning one of the huts the men live in.'

  He was about to ask more questions when one of the overseers called out to him.

  'I gotta go, but I'll see you again soon as I can.'

  He nodded to her, but
made no move to kiss her, or even touch her, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd have to tell Ted, but what would happen then? Would Ted say she had to live with her lawful husband? Did she want to go back to William? She stifled a sob. Why did life have to become even more difficult than it was already?

  *

  CHAPTER 9

  Molly went to live with William after the Reverend Johnson intervened. At first she told William she no longer loved him and preferred to live with Ted. William appealed to the clergyman and he, pompous and eager to display his importance, railed at Ted and Molly, saying they would burn in hell if they continued to live together in sin. Molly, he said, was the worst sinner, for she had a husband. He ignored her protests that she could not have known if William were alive in England, and had expected never to see him again. That made no difference. After he threatened her with a flogging she gave way, though she still worked for Ted and looked after Frank. William was granted a small hut, but Molly insisted on having a separate bed. He shrugged and said there were plenty of other women willing to accommodate him.

  He was allocated to the convict gangs digging trenches and complained bitterly of the hard work involved.

  'I'm a skilled man,' he said. 'This ain't my sort of work.'

  'Then ask if you can't be assigned to that. Ted says they're short of all sorts of skilled labour, and you're a wheelwright as well as a carpenter.'

  It took a long time, but after a year he was sent to Sydney. Molly was delighted, though she pretended to dislike the move. She would be on hand to find a way of returning to England. As the colony expanded and more settlements established, river transport was inadequate. Roads were being built, so wheeled transport became more common. When William was not engaged in making or repairing wheels he was employed for his carpentry skills, for there was much building in Sydney.

  Molly was put to work sewing slops, the coarse loose trousers and striped shirts worn by the male convicts. It was tedious work, but she was able to slip away whenever there was a ship in the harbour. More ships were now arriving, some carrying convicts, who were all in a better condition than those who had come with the Second Fleet, and therefore able to work immediately and not become a drain on the still slender resources of the colony. Other ships brought supplies, and Molly surveyed the officers of all of them.

  She needed a man who could be seduced into helping her, so he had to be both tough and ingenious. She had no illusions about her fate, and his, if she were found stowing away on his ship. And she was not the only convict attempting to smuggle him or herself aboard.

  When she did approach a captain or mate her reception was sympathetic, but they refused her. The penalties, they said, for both her and themselves, were too severe. Governor Phillip had returned to England, and until another was appointed in his place the command of the colony had passed to Major Grose, the lieutenant-governor and commander of the Corps. He was indolent, permitting his officers to take charge, but at the same time far harsher than Governor Phillip, as Molly and the other convicts knew. One of his first acts had been to increase the rations for the soldiers, which had caused a great deal of resentment. Civil magistrates were replaced by officers. Lieutenant John Macarthur became the inspector of public works, and Molly was reminded of his bullying and his wife's arrogance on the Neptune. He gave land grants, many along the Hawksbury river, and assigned convicts to the officers who took them. Most of all he permitted the officers to engage in trade, especially of liquor, which enriched them personally.

  Molly refused to give up. One day, she was convinced, she would find a captain willing to help her.

  *

  It was soon after she had moved to Sydney that Molly heard of one of the ways the members of the Corps were profiting at the expense of the convicts. It was Ted, coming into Sydney for the market one hot summer day, who met her on the wharf and told her.

  'Did ye see the Hope, that American trader, here last month?'

  'Yes, and he was charging far too much for his goods!' Molly was indignant.

  'And his rum. He insisted that were all bought before he sold anything else.'

  'So that's why some of the men are incapable! They don't know when to stop.'

  'It were Macarthur who organised it. He and the other officers clubbed together ter buy all the rum. I hear they're beginning to be called the Rum Corps.'

  'They have far too much power. Oh, how I want to get away from here!'

  'Or come back to me. Sal, the woman I 'ave now ain't so handy with Frank. He misses you too.'

  Molly shook her head. She missed the little boy, but there was no way she could leave William and, more importantly, Sydney, even if she were permitted to disown or divorce her husband.

  Ted sighed, but said he hoped to see her again the next time he came into Sydney.

  'I'm gettin' a land grant on the Hawkesbury flats, they say it's the best farming land, but I won't know how to manage it, and Sal weren't a country girl like you.'

  For a fleeting moment Molly wondered whether she could make a good life running a farm for Ted, but the thought was instantly dismissed. She longed for England and her children too much to simply abandon them, give up all hope of ever seeing them again. Even now they would be so much older she probably would not recognise them. But she had to make the attempt to get back home.

  *

  Security had been tightened since the escape of Mary Bryant. There were sentinels on every wharf at night. No one could fish at night. Despite this, and the strict searches of all ships about to leave, it was known some convicts had escaped by sympathetic sailors hiding them on board. The whaling ships from America, who had been attracted to the area by tales of many whales, were normally helpful to the escapees.

  'They need more sailors,' one of the Corps told Molly. He made a point of seeking her out whenever he came to Sydney, and in exchange for a few kisses she heard whatever news there was.

  Briefly she contemplated stealing some of the male convicts' clothes, but knew she could not pass herself off as a man, even for a few days.

  One night, as she was hiding on the wharf to watch some whaling ships, she saw a group of men being brought ashore in chains. They had, she suspected, been discovered during one of these searches. One man was cradling his arm, from which blood dripped, and complaining bitterly.

  'They stabbed 'im when they stuck bayonets inter the flour sacks,' Molly was told by one of the women she had become friendly with, who was nursing there, when she asked at the hospital the following day. 'He said they went swarmin' through the ship, stabbin' at bales and sacks. He could 'ave been killed. They even used some kind of bomb, made of sulphur, 'e said, which stinks so bad it forced them out of their 'iding places.'

  Molly was thoughtful. These were extra hazards she would have to face. Yet convicts she knew had vanished, so some must have escaped. Few now fled into the bush, for scraping a living there was too difficult, and not all the aborigines were friendly. There was even a story, whether true of not, of one convict being killed by a kangaroo, those strange animals unlike anything Molly had ever seen. She'd seen pictures of elephants and tigers and other exotic beasts in Mr Lewis's books in Ludlow, but none of these odd creatures.

  Meanwhile she had to work at her sewing and watch as the settlement grew. Some free settlers arrived, and a school was opened, then a church. The road between Sydney and Parramatta was cleared, and another started towards the Hawkesbury river. To the freely expressed resentment of many of the Corps, John Macarthur was given more land.

  'The man's got too much power,' was something she heard more than once. But no one was able to stop an apparently inevitable increase, so that many people thought of Macarthur as the real man in charge. Then towards the end of 1794 things changed.

  *

  Molly had approached several captains and officers, but none had been prepared to hide her on board. Their reasons were diverse: reluctance to invite punishment; not sailing direct to England; having a wife on board w
ho would certainly object to a pretty young woman being helped by their husbands. Then she met the captain of a whaler, Captain Locke of the Resolution, who had been eyeing her where she stood on the wharf.

  He invited her to walk with him, saying this was his first visit to Port Jackson, and perhaps she would tell him about it. He was personable, and not old, and clearly he admired Molly. When she asked him to help her, he agreed without any hesitation.

  'But I'll have to make some arrangements with the Salamander. Meet me here tomorrow.'

  To Molly's surprise, on the following day, he took her and some others to the Salamander. They were taken to a small cabin on the lowest deck.

  'But are we coming with you?' John Randall's wife asked. 'I thought we were going with Captain Locke.'

  'So you are, but while the soldiers are searching the Resolution, you can't be found there.'

  Some time later, when it was dark, sailors from the Resolution came to take them across to the ship, where Captain Locke told them the Salamander would now be searched. John Randall and his wife were given a tiny cabin, the others, all men, allocated hammocks with the sailors, and as they were being escorted below Captain Locke smiled at Molly and offered her his arm.

  'You'll share my cabin,' he stated.

  Molly was only too happy to agree. It was the biggest private room she had seen for years, and well appointed. The bed, or perhaps she ought to call it a bunk, was wide and comfortable. That night she had it to herself, the Captain saying he needed to keep watch in case the authorities tried to make a return visit.

  On the following morning the Resolution left Sydney, saluting the Salamander as she cleared the harbour. That ship, the Captain had told her, would stay, without any stowaways, to prove its innocence.

  Molly laughed with glee.

  'I told William that if conditions didn't improve I was going to run away into the bush and take my chance with the natives,' she said. 'He's such an idiot he'll believe me, and tell everyone when I'm missed.'

  'William? Who's he?'

  Molly knew she had to be careful. The others would be able to tell the Captain about him.